Catch up time...long

I know it has been way too long since I've last posted. I would love to catch up and post about everything that has happened in the last 6 weeks, but that would take forever. Instead I'll try my best to do a quick recap. I've included lots of photos.

Shortly after Jack was born Sean and I went up to Northern Virginia to play with Anna and Lucy and to meet our new nephew Jack Byrne.

Sean enjoys visiting his nieces and meeting Jack

Anna loves acting out for the camera

Lucy

Holding my new nephew

The beginning of October we took a trip to NY for Sean's 20th High School Reunion. We spent a day in the city where I got to see my friends Jess and Maria and got to hang out with Sean's parents, his sister Tara and Alana and play with our other niece and nephew Ella and Alex.

Meeting up with Jess in the City. She was my roommate during my Mercy Volunteer Corps orientation over 6 years ago!

Top of the Rock, Rockefeller in NYC

It was such a nice day

Maria met us in the city for dinner

At Sean's HS reunion, a group photo, he hid in the back somewhere.

Alex

Ella

Sean and I had our last Triathlon of the season, our third of the year and Sean was pleased that he finally beat me. I'll have to train harder so that doesn't happen again. His parent's were in town celebrating their 39th anniversary and they were able to watch our Triathlon, take photos and cheer us on.

A pre-race photo

and the swim begins!

Sean starts a few minutes behind me

Swim is done, transition time

Running to my bike

Sean runs to his bike

Sean's off with his bike

I'm back from the bike, time to transition to the run

Sean's done the bike too

Finishing the run

Sean finishes as well

Smiling for our picture with Sean's parents

Overall results:
400 meter swim/T1/20k bike/T2/5k run/Total Time
Tricia: 9:23/2:43/45:02/1:05/25:13/1:23:24
Sean: 9:05/2:40/39:46/1:27/28:48/1:21:43

We took a trip to Phoenix to visit my Sister Amie and her husband Jay. We surprised her by having my younger sister from Vermont come for the weekend as well.

So good to see you Amie!

Surprise Stacy is here!

I love surprising people especially Amie Leigh!

Sliding into the bar

Having fun hanging out with Amie

Sisters!

Brothers (in-law)

Crazy Sisters

Spa day with Amie & Stacy

Hiking up Squaw Peak

At the top of Squaw Peak

The group of us

Ouch! Sitting on a cactus

Out for Amie's birthday, picking up my new BFF

Us girls, and the last photo Stacy let us take

Happy Amie

We raced the Wicked 10K in Virginia Beach, and celebrated Halloween with friends.

Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman's sister in pink and turquoise

.You better watch out!

Sean and I before the race

It was a warm Halloween day

Go Sean, Go!

The first and last time I don't put my hair up in a ponytail

Almost finished, less than a 1/4 mile to go!

Enjoying Halloween with friends in the evening

It's a BOY!

Congratulations to Sean's sister Amy and her husband Scott on the newest arrival to their family.

Jack Byrne

Born yesterday September 22nd at 2:18pm, 8 lbs 11oz and 21" long, small in comparison to his sisters who were both over 9 lbs.   

So precious!

The proud older sisters meet their new little brother

I can't wait to meet to meet Jack!

Fun in North Carolina

Sean and I just got back from a quick weekend in North Carolina furniture shopping. We arrived at Furnitureland South a little after 10 in the morning. Sean had been here before about 8 years ago when he had bought some of the other furniture in our house. When he went before it was about 600,000 square feet of furniture, now they have expanded and claim to have 1.2 million square feet of furniture. They claim to have the largest retail furniture showcase in the world.

There was a six story dresser outside their store. Of course Sean and I both had to pose with it.

We had a long day of shopping and luckily at the end of the day (around 5 pm) we decided on and purchased a couch! The only bad news is that it's going to take until after the New Year for us to receive. Apparently the couch we chose is made in Italy, the leather comes from Brazil and it takes about 20 weeks to make/deliver. Sounds fancy. So this will be an exciting Christmas present, once it actually gets here. Actually it's a delayed wedding gift, since we decided to use the money we got from the wedding for this wonderful couch. Pictures will have to wait until it gets here.

After couch shopping we drove to Raleigh to meet up with our friend Brett. We met Brett through my sister Amie and Jay. He's one of their Westwind Arizona buddies since he used to live out in Phoenix near them, but now lives in Raleigh and NYC. Luckily he was in Raleigh this weekend so we could meet up. Brett was also kind enough to let us crash at his place so we didn't have to get a hotel.

We met Brett and his friend Wes at Fox and the Hound, a local bar that was playing the Washington and USC game. When we arrived there was only about 15 minutes left in the game. The game was pretty exciting and Brett being a huge Washington fan was pretty excited, especially after the Huskies won. Apparently they didn't win any games last year and this was a huge upset, Brett was psyched!

Taken shortly after Washington wins. Brett is psyched!

After the game we went and had delicious Sushi and then we were trying to decide what to do.

When this caught our eye...

Of course we decided to go over and check it out. I ask Sean and Brett to smile and they both do this almost immediately. It was too funny.


I believe this was the most expensive candy store known to man. I got a box of nerds for $2.79, didn't they used to be 50 cents? We all got way more candy then we needed, and Brett found flavored crickets, they were pretty gross looking, but with a sour cream and onion flavor they may be tasty.

After our candy stop we went back to Brett's watched I love You man and called it a night.

This morning we slept until almost 8 which is the latest I've slept in a long time. We got up and showered and I was delighted to find White Tea body wash in the shower. I asked Brett about this and he claims it was his girlfriend's, and that his was the "Manly" Body wash on the rack, but I'm not too sure about that. We went to a little breakfast place nearby and ate way too much food. Before heading on the road I made the boys smile for a quick photo.

Thanks Brett! We had a fun time visiting.

Triathlon Results

The results are in...

I came in 14th in my age group out of 33 (age 25-29) and out of the 213 women that participated in the Patriot Sprint Triathlon, I was number 44.

Not too bad, but I can do better.

Patriot Triathlon Weekend

Saturday morning Sean and I got up at 5 am so we could go watch the start of the Patriot Half Triathlon. This was a half ironman distance triathlon (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run) and the first of the Patriot Series for the weekend. We were both participating in the Sprint Triathlon which wasn't until Sunday.

We got down to the water a little before the 7 am start. There were quite a few of the approximately 600 participants in the water warming up.


At exactly 7 am they let the first wave go and they were on their way to swim 1.2 miles.


This was my first time seeing an open water swim in person, and it was definitely neat to see all of the different waves broken out by the different color swim caps.

After a few of the waves started we moved over to the swim finish so we could see them get out of the water. Once out of the water they had to run about a quarter mile to the bike transition area.

This was the first guy out of the water

My friend Emily, and fellow "race photographer"

First female out of the water

Our friend Brian

You can see the transition run from another angle below. It was definitely helpful to see how this transition worked for my race on Sunday.

Sean smiling for the camera

More participants

A para-glider enjoying the nice weather

Sean decided to head home and do some errands while Emily and I decided to hang out and see Brian finish.

Transition area

Brian dropping his bike off and getting his shoes

This guy was 2nd place, and was so excited to see his kids cheering for him at the finish.

Brian right before the finish

Emily and I stayed until Brian finished and then both headed home. It was a busy morning, and we were both getting up to do it again on Sunday. She was going to come cheer Sean and I.

Sunday morning was an even earlier wake up. My alarm went off around 4:30 am and luckily I was well rested from going to bed early on Saturday plus my 2 hour nap that I was able to take as well.

We found Emily right when we got to the race. She took our pre-race picture. It looks much brighter than it really was.

The start of our race, it looks very peaceful before any of the participants arrived.

The sprint distance (which was what Sean and I were both doing) started at 7 am. There were over 500 registered participants. The international distance started an hour later at 8. There were about 330 registered participants. Between all of the racers and the spectators, it was definitely a lot of excitement to start the morning.

Sporting my bright pink swim cap, I started in the second wave

I stick out for sure. Chillin' with the guys before the race starts. I was able to get a little warm up in that definitely helped my pre race nerves.

Getting ready to swim my 750 meters

and we're off...

After the swim we had to run the same transition that we saw during the half on Saturday.

Sean making the transition from the swim to the bike

I felt pretty good after the swim. I definitely didn't push it, not knowing how I would feel at the end. It was difficult trying to go faster because I was afraid to get kicked, and then I had one girl on my toes the entire race, so I was trying to speed up, but didn't have a place to move to. Knowing how I felt this time, next time I'll try and push it a little harder. I ended up swimming the 750 meters in 17:11. I had no idea what I would swim, I was just trying to swim under 20 minutes, so I'm glad I was able to.

Once the water was shallow enough to walk it was faster to do this than swim in.

I'm shortly behind him

Once on the bike I managed to pass quite a few bikers and managed to maintain a pace of about 17.5 mph during the entire 20K ride (12.4 miles).

Right before the turnaround I saw Sean and knew I had the potential to catch him. After the bike, I was able to take my shoes off and get off my bike as I had practiced. It made for a smooth transition.

Putting my bike back

The sip that cost me my goal...

Sean out for his run before I put my bike back

After putting my bike back I changed shoes and went out for my 5K run (3.1 miles). I felt pretty good and my legs were tired but didn't feel like jello. I was able to mantain a pace under 8 min/mile. I tried to keep it under 25 minutes, but I wasn't able to this time. Next time. Like the bike this was an out and back course. I saw Sean shortly before the turnaround point, and being that I'm a stronger runner I knew I could catch him. It took me until about a quarter mile before the finish when I passed him, but he was doing awesome and he looked good.

"Sean, I'm coming to get you"

Finishing the triathlon at 1:30:08 (If I hadn't taken that sip of water maybe I could have kept it under 1:30)

Sean finishes at 1:34:44 (although he crossed the finish line less than 30 seconds behind me, he started 4 minutes ahead of me)

We were given cold wet towels right at the finish and greeted by our friends Audrey and Emily who had woken up extra early to come watch us race.

Definitely a good way to end a weekend. We had so much fun and can't wait to do it again next year! Who knows, we may even attempt the international distance.