I had just scooped 2 nice sized scoops of Edy’s Espresso Chip ice cream into my bowl. Of course there was some residual ice cream on the metal scooper. So I went to lick it off… and my lip stuck to the outside of the scoop. Yep, I pulled it off and yep, my lip is raw and missing small patches of skin. It sounds worse than it is, but it’s ANNOYING and sore. Brian laughed and chastised me. He reminded me of the movie A Christmas Story and the little boy getting his tongue stuck on the cold flag pole. And yes, I do remember one of my sisters (won’t mention which one) doing something similar outside our house in Wisconsin. But an ice cream scoop? And in Alabama? Who’d have thought?!?

Yes, we are alive here in Toone-land.  Sorry you’ve not heard from us!  We made it to Gatlinburg (a whole post in and of itself, coming soon), and though our hotel had wi-fi, Brian had the laptop with him at the conference for part of the time, and the other part of the time, I found that our room was too far from the main part of the hotel to get the signal.  GRR.  But we had a good trip, and after a LONG car ride, we got back Saturday night. Above is one of the few "people" pictures from the trip – Analise and I at the top of the Space Needle ($6.75/person elevevator ride up a 25 story tower in the center of town) with the mountains in the background.

Then it was a busy day at church on Sunday morning, as I was in charge of the nursery and we were teaching in Analise’s classroom.  After that, we had a busy afternoon getting ready to have 6 friends over for an Ironman wrap-up dinner.  I made mexican shredded chicken for tacos, queso dip, homemade sangria (recipe from AllRecipes.com) (yum!), and a brownie trifle (recipe from Betty Crocker).  Great company, great food, fun stories about the race.  All in all, a great evening!

I’ve forgotten to mention that we’re in Potty Training Boot Camp.  Brian’s mom got Analise started pottying when we were in Florida for the triathlon, and she’s doing really well.  It’s a wonderful relief to be washing less diapers, but it’s still a time committment to get her there and get the job done.  Josiah’s getting the short end of the stick… so we moved his Bumbo seat into the bathroom so he doesn’t get left sitting (or rolling or swinging) in the family room.  Analise is doing pretty well, and hopefully, we’ll be into "big-girl underwear" (with Dora, the Backyardigans and Elmo on them!) later this week.

Lastly, I’ll leave you with a picture from earlier this month, on the day of our family pictures.  I can’t believe how Josiah is so big!  She definitely can’t hold him on her lap anymore!

We just moved Josiah into his new big-boy car seat, the Britax Decathlon.  (Expensive, but our one *must-have* item for the safety of our kids… oh, and I got a little bit more of a "deal" on it.)  Anyway, the transition has been a story of it’s own.  But because he can’t sit up by himself just yet, we’re keeping the infant carrier carseat in the trunk.  So today at the grocery store, he rode in it.  When we got to the car, I set it down beside the car, loaded Josiah into the big carseat.  The grocery store guy was still finishing up loading my groceries into the trunk.  I thanked him and got into the car and drove away.  Got home and realized I’d left the carrier seat in the parking lot!  I called Brian laughing at myself, and of course, his first question was, "Josiah made it into the car, didn’t he?".  So I had to drive all the way back to Publix to get it.  So much for my morning of free time! 

Here are a couple Analise moments I jotted down in the past week or so.

Overheard in the baby monitor
Josiah was sleeping in my room while I was making a cake in the kitchen.  When I heard him waking up in the baby monitor, I sent Analise in to talk to him until I could finish.  This is what I heard:

[crying]
Analise: He’s awake!
[crying ceases, as I’m sure Josiah was pleased to see her face]
Analise: He had a good nap.  He’s so cute!  It’s my baby brother!
Don’t cry, ‘Siah.  Mommy’s making dinner.  Mommy’s making cake.  It’s ok.  Mommy’s coming. 
[yelling] Mommy!  Mommy!
Mommy’s coming, ‘Siah. 
[yelling] Mommy!

Already looking out for her baby brother
During our weekend in Florida, the friends staying with us had a 10 month old.  He was crawling around, exploring, playing with Analise and Josiah’s toys.  Josiah spent most of his time rolling back and forth on a sheet watching the two bigger ones play.  At one point, though, Bryant crawled over to "play" with Josiah, and reached out and poked him in the face.  Josiah was startled and started crying loudly.  Analise starting crying, too, saying, "My baby brother!"  She’s already looking out for him. 

Singing in circles
Analise has created her own versions of the infamous "Song That Never Ends". 

The itsy-bitsy spider went up the water spout.
Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.
The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout…Down came the rain…

(The same can be done with "Twinkle, twinkle".)

On becoming beautiful
I got my hair cut last 2 weeks ago (see the family pictures here).  My usual hair is curly, and easy to wear as it air dries nicely.  It takes about 5 minutes to towel dry and look fine.  This new cut, though, takes a bit of time.  All my permed curls are grown out, and it’s short, above my shoulders.  My stick straight hair doesn’t have much volume, so it really needs to be blow-dried, and because I’m not so good at blow-drying, it kind of needs to be smoothed under or out with a curling iron.  At least 20 minutes of work. 
Yesterday as I was blow-drying, Analise was playing in her room.  I turned off the drier to find her standing outside the bathroom watching me.  When I turned around with my slightly frizzy hair to talk to her, she said in her sweet voice, "You’re so beautiful."  I almost cried.  Nothing like knowing your daughter thinks you’re beautiful. 

http://boss.streamos.com/wmedia/ironman/video/2006/florida/finish.wvx?starttime=3:41:13.00&endtime=01:00:00.00

The video of me crossing the finish line holding Analise is available online now. The announcer ends up saying my name twice — once when a whole bunch of people are crossing the line, and then a minute or so later when I came across the line carrying Analise. You have to look quick though, because I’m really flying ;-). (just kidding).

During our date night tonight, I interviewed Brian about his Ironman experience.  Here’s the transcript!

Why did you decide to do an Ironman triathlon?
I met this guy (you know who you are…), and he said it was such an awesome experience.  As he described it, I got really excited about it and wanted to do it myself.  For the record, this guy has done 3 Ironmans. 

What were you thinking on the start line?
I didn’t know what to expect.  I was very cold standing on the beach.  But I was thinking more about all those people (2200) in front of me blocking my view of the ocean.  I couldn’t even see the pros start.  But I did see them having to jump over the waves after they got out into the water a ways.  The water had been much calmer when we swam on Friday.  And I said to Ben, "This is not going to be like yesterday."

What was the swim like?
The cannon went off, the mass of people moved towards the water like cattle.  The water was much warmer than the air and I made it over the first waves without problem.  You could just jump over them or stand on the sand bar and they’d crash below you.  The sandbar (making it about 3 feet deep) went out a ways so everyone was just running through the water for that distance.  When we finally started to swim, there were so many people right in front of you you couldn’t really swim, so I just doggy-paddled. 

Tell me more about the swim.  What were the waves like when you were farther out?
The waves were coming from the side, which made for very interesting swimming once we could actually swim.  Sometimes you would lift your head up just a fraction and your head would already be out of the water because the wave had gone out from underneath you.  Other times you would lift your head up expecting to breath and instead you’d still be under the water and you’d take a big mouthful of salt water.  Even on the way out during the first lap, i was feeling somewhat nauseated and feeling like I could easily get disoriented.  You could feel yourself ride up and over the waves.  When we made it out to the turn around buoy, there was a huge backlog of people trying to make the turn because the turn was directly into the sun and directly into the waves, and it was hard to get started again. 

What was it like swmiming with that many people? 
Very frustrating.  Even when things started to spread out a little bit, you would catch a group or someone and I wasn’t sure even how to go around people.  Other times, you’d be swimming and someone would grab your foot and the next thing you know, they’d be swimming over your back or your leg.  You feel bad about kicking, so you have to stop and let them go.  Then you’re frustrated when they slow you down.  It’s also frustrating to be concentrating yourself on not running into people but to continually have people swimming into you. 

How did it feel to come out of the water finishing the first lap and have to go back in? 
I was relieved to have made it through one lap.  And I had to stop for water to try to get the salt taste out of my mouth.  I had to wait in line for water.  But I was ready to get back in, expecting it to go a lot better the second lap.  It wasn’t much better though.  Still having to wait on people, and getting swam into by people.  I got stung by a jellyfish on the top of my foot shortly after starting the second lap.  I saw 2 others (very pretty!) swimming a few feet below the surface. 
The hardest part about the 2nd lap was that we were a little more spread out so you couldn’t just rely on the mass of people to know which direction to go.  This meant you had to look up and see the buoys regularly.  I would look up and each buoy seemed so far away.  But then you’d swim just a little bit, and it would seem a lot closer.  After passing one buoy, though, you’d look up and see the next one and it seemed so far away again.  With 10 buoys to pass, it was disheartening.  I did wonder if I could actually make it. 

What did it feel like to get stung by a jellyfish? 
Like a little bee sting on the top of my foot. 

Did you see any sharks?
No, but I did see a school of fish at the end of the 2nd lap. 

How did you feel after the swim? 
Extremely glad it was over.  But I didn’t have much time to be relieved because within 100 feet of getting out of the water, there were hundreds of volunteers lined up to strip off your wetsuit.  I had to lay flat on my back for two of the volunteers to pull it off of me.   I started to cramp up and was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get up. 

Was it cold out of the water? 
No, not yet.  Right after they took the wetsuit off, I had nothing on but my swim shorts and I was holding a cold wetsuit as I started to run up the beach.  Then I ran through a shower area to rinse the sand off.  This was immediately followed by a breezeway in the shade between 2 buildings with a tremendous wind blowing.  That’s where I got really cold. 

By the time I got my transition bag with my bike clothes and made it into the tent, I was shaking uncontrollably.  I couldn’t open my bag.  One of the other racers took pity on my and said, "Let me do it for you."  Even once it was open, there were so many people and it was so wet.  You’re trying desperately to keep your dry clothes dry.  I got my shorts and jersy on and ran out of the tent barefoot because i didn’t want to get my socks wet.  I ran all the way to my bike barefoot, still with a lot of sand on my feet.  Volunteers were ready to hand me my bike, while I tried to get the sand off my feet and get my socks and shoes on. 

Did you ever get all the sand off your feet?
Not until halfway through the run,at which point I changed into a dry pair of socks from my special needs bag that was waiting just after the halfway point. 

How was the bike? 
Good. 

Was it the highlight of your Ironman experience?
Yep.

Anything else you’d care to share?
I passed a lot of people, that was very motivating.  I tried to spin pretty fast, especially into the headwind, which was about a 40 mile stretch of the course.  I knew if I could just make it to the point where the course turns back toward the start/finish, there would be a good tailwind.  I believe I averaged between 25 and 28mph for a stretch of about 20 miles. 

How did it feel to get off the bike and know you had a marathon ahead of you?
I wanted to get back on the bike and ride those measly 26.2 miles in about an hour.  I knew that it was going to be painful

What were some of your thoughts during the marathon?
I wasn’t sure where exactly the mile markers were.  We were told that the aid stations were at the mile markers.  So when I reached the first aid station, I thought I had done the first mile pretty quickly and easily.  When I reached the 2nd aid station, still without having seen any mile markers, I thought maybe this was mile 2 and this marathon was passing really quickly.  After running for what seemed like a few more minutes, I could see what looked like a mile marker, and I thought perhaps that was mile 3.  But as I got closer, I realized it was mile number 1, and I think I started to cry.  I was fighting back tears at different points throughout the whole day. 

Did the marathon get any better?
Nope, not really.  I could not believe how long each mile seemed. 

What did you eat all day?  That’s a lot of physical activity without stopping for lunch. 
I ate maybe 3 Powerbars, 2 Powergels, at least 10 Gu gels (though 1 or 2 leaked onto me and the bike and my jersey pocket), bananas, pretzels, chicken broth (during the run).  I drank a lot of Gatorade, coke and water throughout the day.

What did you think about all day?
All different things.  I was just trying to survive the swim.  I thought about my family and everyone cheering me on.  I thought alot about the other racers and their families cheering them on.  There were people all over the course with signs for their racer.  I ran behind a guy for probably 5 miles, and during that time, I was so focused on trying to keep up with him.  I also lost my sunglasses during a transition, so I had my eyes almost closed during the run, just looking at this guys jersey, which had the Ironman Florida logo on it. 

On the first lap of the run, I was still thinking I could maybe break 11 hours.  But by the start of the 2nd lap (just over 13 miles), I knew that I couldn’t keep that pace up so there was no hope of making my original time goal.  But I was ok with that.  I quickly realized even finishing was going to be a huge effort.  I knew I was going to be able to finish, and I was very happy with the thought of just making it to the finish line. I was able to keep running all the way until just past where Kristine and my parents were cheering in between mile 13 and 14. After that, I started to shuffle pretty slowly. Then by the aid station at mile 15, I knew that I was going to have to walk for a long time. I walked for the next 10 miles. It wasn’t until someone ran up behind me just before mile 25 and decided to walk with me that I found out that it was possible I could still break 12 hours. I didn’t have a watch on and there were no clocks on the course except for the start/finish area. It was dark by this point, and it seemed like the sun had set hours ago.  This guy who came up behind me told me that it was only 6:39PM, so I had 21 minutes to make it to the finish line to break 12 hours.  This motivated me enough to break into a slow trot, which I was able to maintain all the way to the finish. 

What was it like to finish?
It was incredible to run through all the crowds of cheering people.  When I made it to Kristine, I could see my dad was boosting Analise over the fence so I could carry her with me to the finish line.  She seemed light as a feather as we flew up the finish ramp and across the line. 

Will you ever do another Ironman?
Yes, but I’d like to focus on cycling for the next few years.  

It’s hard to take photos and cheer… oh, and handle 2 children! We don’t have great pictures of Brian’s finish, but we’re counting on the professional one to show us his exciting finish line moment with Analise. But here are some fun glimpses of the weekend.

First, Brian, Josiah and I enjoying a chilly sunset on the beach on Friday night.

During the day on Friday, We visited the Ironman Village and picked up registration info (below). Then Brian, Ben and Arthur went out for a ride. They also got into their wetsuits to test out swimming in the ocean.

Finally, it was race day. Brian left at about 5:30 to walk down to the start area. He had to get "body-marked" where they write your race numbers on your arms and legs, check on his bike, put a few last minute things in his transition bags (like his shoes! which he couldn’t put into the bag the day before because he was wearing them and had forgotten other shoes!). I walked down the beach from our condo and saw the start from the distance. It was pretty crowded, and I was on the wrong side of the swim area, but here are the pictures of the start and racers coming into the beach finishing their first lap before heading out for their second lap.

Though I missed Brian coming through the beach between his swim laps, the rest of our group saw him. Then we moved over to where they come out of the swim-bike transition area to head out on their ride. Here’s a picture of a tiny part of the bike area – 2500 bikes! This was taken by Brian after he dropped his bike off on Friday afternoon.

After we cheered Brian on his way out onto the bike course (again, we couldn’t get a picture of him – maybe because he was moving too fast through all this?!?), I went back to the condo while everyone else headed out onto the bike course. They got this great picture of Brian flying by. Lauren said she’d never seen him so intensely focused.   I suppose so!  He passed more than 1300 people, averaging 22mph!

Beverly and the kids and I walked down to the bike-to-run transition area and caught Brian dropping off his bike, changing his shoes and heading out for his his long run.

We saw him twice on the run, right outside our condo, as he finished his first 13 miles, turned around about a half mile down the road and headed out again.  No photos of that.   I’m a SERIOUS cheer-er… Brian knows not to expect pictures from me because I am too busy cheering. After we saw him head out onto his second half of the marathon, we headed to the finish line around 5:30, expecting him before 6pm. It was dark and cold and my little ones were tired. It took him a bit longer to come through than we expected, and I started to get worried. He told me that he ran most of the first half of the marathon, but had to walk about 10 miles of the 2nd half. He was walking at mile 25 and another guy who was just finishing his first lap started walking with him. Brian had lost track of time, and because it was dark, he thought it was pretty late, like 8:30, or getting close to 14 hours. But when this guy found out Brian was almost finished, he told him he was pretty close to breaking 12 hours. Brian ran the last mile, and finished just before 7pm. Yeah! So here are our only finish pictures – Brian and Ben after Ben’s finish at 10:52pm.

After Brian had showered and gotten some food, we headed back to the finish line to cheer on Ben. We ended up staying until midnight, the 17 hour cut-off time. That’s a fun place to be – the music’s blaring, the announcer is keeping everyone riled up, they’re giving away hats and t-shirts, and the "everyday" ironmen are coming through. It was fun to see them achieving such a monumentous task. The last picture is of Brian and I cheering on the last finishers.

Here are his finish stats:

2.4 mile Swim: 1:28:10 (1647th place of 2109 finishers)
Swim-to-Bike transition: 14:39
112 mile Bike: 5:05:08 (346th place in the race overall after this segment, 81st place in bike times!)
Bike-to-Run transition: 4:32
26.2 mile run: 5:02:11 (1291st in run times)
Total: 11:54:40 (762 overall, 114th of 261 in men’s 30-34 age category)

That’s my wrap-up of the Ironman Adventure. If you have questions for Brian, post them here, and he’ll answer them in a first-hand from-the-mouth-of-the-Ironman blog sometime this week.

Waking up as an Ironman is painful. Brian’s doing pretty well today, considering he traveled 140.6 miles yesterday by the power of his own body(2.4mi swim, 112mi bike, 26.2mile run)! He even got on his bike for a short ride. He’s still pretty stiff and sore, but he’s definitely doing well. The 2nd day after an event like this is usually the worst. He’s got a normal day planned – riding to work and back for a total of 25 hilly miles.  We’ll see… I hope to have some time to blog about his adventure for him tomorrow, and I’ll get some pictures posted. Thanks for checking in on him!

PS… if you’re wondering when he’s planning the next one, it will be a long while.  He’s convinced he’ll enjoy being just a great cyclist for a while. 

Woohoo!  I’ve finally got internet… not a good enough connection in our condo, so I drove around the parking lot, then around the block, then across the street, all with "connectivity" but not enough to pull anything up.  But here I am, in the parking space outside our condo and I’ve got a connection.  WOOHOO!

Crazy morning, but so fun!  I missed Brian’s first lap of the swim but our friends saw him and he was feeling good and said a few words to them.  His first lap was about 10 minutes faster than he expected!  His total swim was 1:28, which was 15 minutes fast than he really thought he’d do, so that’s great.  He’s just relieved to be done with the swim, I’m sure, as that was the part he felt least prepared for.  We saw him head out on his bike.  He looked good and I know he’s blazing his way through right now.  You can go to probably check in on him directly here, and his bib number is 306.  If that doesn’t work you can go to www.Ironmanlive.com, click on the Athlete Split page on the right under Ironman Florida and look him up by # or name.  I’ll try to keep you posted!  My kiddos are inside resting so we can be ready to be on the run course.  It goes right outside our condo, and it’s a 2 lap out-and-back course, so we can see him 4 times right here outside our place! 

Check back soon!  I might go inside and upload a couple pictures from this morning!

We’re on our Ironman Adventure!  It’s been a long week, and it took a lot of work to get here, but we finally made it yesterday afternoon. 

We’ve had a sliding set of plans for when we were going to head down to Panama City.  1st: Brian was only going to miss class on Friday, so we’d stay through the end of his Thursday class (2:50) and then drive the 4.5-5 hours.  2nd:  The inauguration of the new president of Samford was set for this morning from 10-12, and Brian was going to participate in the event in his UC Davis cap/gown.  We found out that there was a "mandatory" athlete meeting at 7:30pm, so we thought it would be best if we left at noon, and he left an assignment for his class.  3rd:  We found out that no one else could pick up Brian’s race packet, which supposedly could only be picked up until 4pm today.  We decided that it’d be best if he missed the inauguration event and left by 10am.  4th:  I got to campus at 10 to pick him up, and we left at 10:30, with a "whoops-forgot-something" trip at home.  After that, we finally left at 11am. 

Analise got to ride down with her Grandma and Grandpa, in the car with DVD player.  I had looked up directions on Google Maps and we set out with a full car, and a sleeping Josiah, much to our joy.  We made great progress for a couple hours.  We followed the Google Maps directions, even though Brian thought about another way (that his dad -who left an hour before us) ended up taking.  Poor choice.  We watched the time tick by and got more and more stressed as 4pm came and went.  We finally pulled up and dropped Brian off at 4:20.  He’d missed packet picked up.  Thankfully, graciously, they opened again for "latecomers" this morning.  He did make it to the mandatory meeting though. 

Yesterday was an exhausting day, especially since we hardly slept the night before.  We’re in a nice 4 bedroom condo with Brian’s parents and our friends, Tim and Lindsay and their son, Bryant.  Tonight, more friends are joining us, Bryant and Lauren.  Today, Brian’s gotten do a little swimming in the ocean and bike the run course, get all his gear ready, and drop off his bags and relax a bit, before the 7am start on tomorrow.  Then, just a reminder – it’ll be a 2.4 mile (2 lap course) swim in the ocean (which is surprisingly warm!), a 112 mile bike ride that he’ll fly through, and a 26.2 mile (2 lap- out and back course) marathon.  Whew!  I’m tired just typing it all.  I’ll post again tomorrow with a few more details, but if you’re interested, you can follow his progress and check to see his results LIVE on the Ironman website.  How cool is that?!?   We’ll check back in tomorrow! Post your comments here on this page to cheer Brian along. We’ll check back in tonight and then again tomorrow night after the race.

(From Brian) – For those of you who want to follow along live, check out:  http://www.ironmanlive.com  Click on Athlete Split Time on the right side of the page underneath Ford Ironman Florida. Then type in my name into the search box and there you should be able to see my splits after I finish each event. The race starts at 7AM and I should be out of the ocean by 8:30AM. Then I should be finished the bike by 1:30PM and finally be through with the run by 6PM hopefully at the latest.