Love the Life you Live, Live the Life you Love

I'm not huge on the whole "take pictures of yourself" thing - but my lack of friends in Utah who mountain bike and run leave me no choice. I wanted to post some pictures of me representing my BU triathlon team pride in my jersey and my new love, Rex the mountain bike. Yes I do indeed mountain bike in a full triathlon kit - trust me it's been commented on before by my dad friends (I use the term "friends" loosely here) from the local bike club. The conversation went a bit like this: Dad - So were you on a cycling team back east? Me - No, but I was on a triathlon team and we did group rides Dad - Yeah....I noticed the no sleeve jersey. Well excuuuuse me. First of all, it's a kit. Not a jersey. Second of all....Question: However do you manage to ride that $6,000 carbon aero-frame bike with that giant stick wedged up your ass? I had no idea I that someone would ever judge me purely based up on my apparel of choice. Alright fine, I'll admit that ...

It seems I've worried the general public with my last post. I woke up to an e-mail from my mother telling me I'm probably just PMS'ing and not to panic, and my best friend Kristy said I seem sad and she's worried. My blog post was even depressing enough for Australian pro-triathlete Sam Betten to send me a little "wishing you the best" twitter post. Oy (that is only to be said in an Australian accent - btw. Do your best.) Lighten up people! I know that 99% of the time I'm showering the world with unnecessary amounts of smiles and have a tendency to annoy people with my unending amounts of positive energy and enthusiasm for the genuinely mundane aspects of life - but I'm allowed to be pensive and sad too, you know! I had no idea that people took my blog posts to heart - I'm going to have to filter a bit more so no one scoops me up and throws me into rehab. So, onto more positive things! Because it seems that my followers depend on it. Hey, we al...

I'm in a wee bit of a funk right now. Any triathletes who can offer some kind words of advice, a bit of encouragement, or maybe just a "get off your ass" one-liner would be most appreciated. I'm not sure if it's because since I got to Utah my times have significantly dropped and left me feeling fat and slow (I'm now running a 24 minute 5k - w.t.f. mate?) or if grad-school classes and clinicals leave me so mentally drained at the end of the day that I can't even think about doing anything but going home and napping, but I've quite literally become a bump on a log. At least in my book. It's really not that bad, yesterday I biked 40 miles and today I ran almost 10, mostly on trails. But it's the whole 'motivation' thing that's tearing me apart. I literally have to trick myself to get out the door. And then when I'm actually out there it takes all my will power to actually stay out there and not turn right back around, put on my X...

I looked today and saw that I have 9,999 page views! Who will be the lucky 10,000th person!? Probably my mom. Also, I had an epiphany in the shower. A pen-pal is called a pen-pal because you write to them with a pen, presumably in a letter. WHO KNEW!? For the first 23 years of my life I had no idea why pen-pals were called pen-pals. I always thought they should be called mail-pals, or letter-pals. But pen-pals has a nice, phonemic ring to it so I let it go. Then there I was washing my hair and - lightbulb!- it clicks. Guess what, I just made another neural connection in my little bean. Go me. So, if you write to someone in an e-mail, do you have a key-pal? A type-pal? The world may never know. I'm still laughing about it. Pen-pal! Brilliant!

Look what Chris did to my puppy! How adorable is he? Poor Henry, his cuteness gets taken advantage of a lot....

Today I saw rattlesnake number 3 *shudder*. I swear they're following me. Who am I - Harry Potter??  Away with you, slithery demons! You give me the creeps! My first rattlesnake encounter was on the river path that goes up Logan Canyon. I was just struggling up a hill as per usual, came around the corner, and I saw a horrified mother clutching a little kid while 2 older guys poked around in a bush with a stick. The mom told me there was a big rattle snake in it. HERE'S AN IDEA, BRILLIANT UTAH FOLKS! Let's poke around in a bush that a rattlesnake is in. Sounds like fun, right? Excuse me, sir, were you born under a rock? Haven't you seen Steve Irwin? Jeff Corwin? And what were you getting at with the stick thing? It's a full 2 feet long and I'm pretty sure you'd be just as successful getting bit with that as your would just reaching your own arm in there. You're also completely leaning over the bush like it's a barrel of candy. And by the way, fanta...

Today is my last day as a 22 year old and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I feel like 23 sounds a lot older than 22. 23 is 2 years away from 25, which is halfway to 30 - now that's a scary thought. But a lot of GREAT things happened when I was 22, so I can only expect to keep the ball rollin' at 23. At 22 I got accepted to grad school, graduated college, moved across the country, and got a dog. At 22 I bought my first car, put a down payment on my first big-girl apartment, and mountain biked. At 22 I ran my 2nd marathon, went on a whale watch, and PR'd in my 5k time. I worked on a farm in New Hampshire, lived with Chris for the summer, had an internship at a hospital, ran half of the Boston marathon course, and decided I want to get my PhD. At 22 my parents put my childhood home up for sale, marking the end of an era and my entrance into adulthood - where now my house, not my parent's house, is my "home." At 22 I saw my first rattlesnake, my first...