Kathleen's Adventures

Saturday, May 1 - Beaumont's Inagural Gusher Marathon. The Race Against Drunk Driving round 2 is on.  My mom, Mrs. Clark, Kelly, and I are all doing the half marathon.  Mike and Kathy Schexnaider (the Beaumont MADD representative) are doing the 5k.  Below is an email Kathy sent out earlier today - I'm beyond flattered that I have been able to motivate even just one person to get out there and be active, especially for this cause.  Please consider donating, or evevn volunteering your time if you are in Beaumont. As all of you probably know, I do not exercise. Over the years you can tell I have blossomed into a very well rounded young lady. This past fall, a young lady from Houston who’s best friend’s sister was killed by a drunk driver raise over $15,000.00 in a triathlon in Florida for MADD East Texas-Beaumont. She called recently and told me of the GUSHER RUN here in Beaumont on May 1, 2010. Well, she is running the ½ marathon and I decided it was time for me...

I've been blog-boring lately.  There has been lots going on, but I just haven't necessarily taken the time to blog about it (which probably isn't a bad thing)! Overall, things are going very well, in fact better than I could have asked for right now.  I do not think I'm going to have an incredibly stellar performance at Lonestar 70.3 this weekend, but I'm learning to take a bit of a step back from caring so much.  I'm starting to realize I don't necessarily want my entire life revolving around triathlon, or any other one thing (or person) for that matter.  I'm starting to find some balance and it has been awesome.  I'm enjoying church, meeting new people, going new places, making plans for trips I would have never considered in the past, and generally saying "yes" to a lot of new (and old) things and opening up my mind to a lot of new ideas - the #1 idea right now being that triathlon is not the be all and end all of the world (of course ...

I had an amazing weekend - and am so excited to see God working in His ways - some of them making sense, and some of them there to remind us we really have no control over what happens - but He does. More details coming in later posts, but here's a taste of the weekend's highlights: -  I was not looking forward to the Gateway to the Bay sprint triathlon Saturday morning at all.  However, the morning definitely exceeded my expectations.  I had fun, and even ended up placing 3rd in my age group.  Nicki came with me and got 3rd in her age group too, in only her second season of racing!  I had a blast spending the morning with her and seeing many other tri friends. -  Mom and Mrs. Clark walked 9.75 miles Saturday morning.  That's basically TEN MILES!  WOW.  I am so proud.  Mom said after that she is confident she can finish the race now.  Three weeks and counting! -  I got an email from my sister on my i...

-  Supercuts rocks!  Seriously.  I needed the back of my new short haircut trimmed but wasn't about to enlist my $80 a pop guy to do it.  So I figured since it is a pretty choppy haircut, it would be fairly hard to mess up.  Well, it took the lady all of 5 minutes and she charged me all of $5 for a "neck trim."  Totally made my day and made her a 100% tip. -  I guess "Spring" is over in Houston because the humidity is back in full force.  Friday's ride was the first time I've been completely soaked in months, and this morning I had bugs stuck to my face after my run.  Awesome. -  Is it considered a sin to pour Miller Lite over Blue Bell Ice Cream in Brenham on Good Friday?  If so, good thing it wasn't me who did it :-) -  It is safe to say the Silverlake Open Water Swim course was a bit shorter this time around than it was for their last race in October.  I was faster this time in both the half mile and mile, yet I'm ...

This wind is starting to cause problems outside of bike riding - as if that hasn't been bad enough! I've been driving lots of people around lately to bike rides in my car because it can nicely fit 4 people and 4 bikes.  It has gotten ridiculously dirty, so I thought I'd wash it today before loading it up again in the morning with people.  I went right after work and had on a full knee-length orange skirt.  I first had to hop out quickly in said skirt with my vice grips and ratchet to pull the bike rack off my car so I could take it through the wash.  I noticed it was a bit windy when I was doing that, but I managed okay. After I drove through I drove up to a vacuum station and hopped out to put the rack back on and to vacuum my car.   And the wind blows again.  Gees.  My hands weren't exactly free to keep my skirt down, but I don't think it ever got too bad (at least I'm telling myself that).  Then I start to vacuum and again the win...

I did my first Tour de Bayou tonight - wow.  I thought it might have been a good opportunity to pull the hot pants out of hiding, but the the only thing my hot pants-clad butt got was kicked!  We ran at Spotts Park tonight, and if you know anything about Spotts park, you know it is basically a bowl and not very big.  So to do any sort of distance meant a lot of up and down and up and down and up and down.  That was harder than any hill workout I have ever done!  I actually didn't do half bad considering I haven't run up a hill since December, and before that it was probably June.  It was fun and I hopefully do a few more in the series over the next month.  It is part of my "trying new things" campaign!