Sparkle scarf, favorite sunglasses (of the day), owl earrings, sunshine shoes and Creed Spring Flowers (aka best perfume on the planet)

Today I woke up with the distinct feeling that this day had its sights set on leaning over to the lame side of the scale from 1 to awesome.  So I made a decision to counteract todays lameness by adorning myself with some of my Happy Makers.

Step #1 – Decide I shall be wearing my sunshine shoes today and my outfit will have to work around them.

Step # 2 – Select one sparkly animal piece of jewelry.  Today my owl earrings jumped out at me.

Step # 3 – Spritz myself with the most delicious smelling, wonderful perfume that ever was spritzed out of a perfectly pink bottle; Creed Spring Flowers.

Step # 4 – Put my hair in a high pony tail which reminds me of my childhood and makes me feel a little bit like an 8 year old

Step # 5 – Slide my favorite pair of sunglasses on to my face.  (note: my favorite sunglasses change daily, but today my orange Raybans took top honor)

Step # 6 – Blast some spectacular music in my car on the way to work so loud that I think my speakers may or may not explode.  (Todays song of choice was Mumford & Sons version of “The Boxer” (feat. Jerry Douglas and Paul Simon)) Here is a link to a live version of the song The Boxer Live

Oakie doaks.  Time to get back to the day and hope that the scales have tipped slightly more toward the awesome side

xo Céline

Hi Boys and Girls!

A couple of months ago a friend brought up the idea of doing a triathlon.  I, needless to say, was like “Um, I don’t know about that.  I’ve never done one before!”  And I’m not one to openly embarrass myself in front of a crowd of people, especially in a competition!  Call it what you will, I’ll call it my competitive spirit, but I didn’t want to do it because I didn’t want to risk being bad at it.  My pride can’t handle that.  haha.  Then of course there was the other part of my brain, the part that likes a challenge.  That part of by brain said “Hell yes!”.  The “HELL YES!” was louder than the “um i don’t know”, so I went with it!

Step 1 – sign up (that way you are locked in so you can’t back out)

Step 2 – tell as many people as you can that you are doing the race.  For some reason my logic is that if I tell people I’m doing something then I HAVE to do it  I did have a few people say “don’t you mean you are doing PART of a triathlon, not the whole thing by yourself?”  And that just added fuel to my fire!  I was like “Nope, I’m doing the whole bloody thing and you should come and watch!”

Step 3 – train, train and train some more (a key to this step is having a fab training partner, preferably one who is better than you so they can push you.  Mine was extra fab and extra fast so it was a win win for me:))

Step 4 – (this is an important one) find the right outfit!  I mean you never want to go anywhere inappropriately dressed… at least I don’t.  In this instance it is quite important as you don’t want to waste time in your transition areas fumbling with changing your clothes!

The race we signed up for was the UWC Bahamas Triathlon.  It is a great race for beginners and pros and the proceeds go toward a spectacular cause.  Please check out their website and sign up for next year!  And you can not go wrong with the location, the weather in the Bahamas in late October/early November is glorious.

Being my first triathlon ever, we did the “sprint” distance.  (I didn’t exactly “sprint” it but thats besides the point)   This distance race is a spectacular one for beginners because each leg is doable for people of varying levels of experience.  We swam 750m, biked 20k and ran 5k.  Before training, I knew I could do each leg on its own but I quickly found out that all together they are a totally different ball game!

We started training about 2 months before the race.  Mostly doing a swim, bike or run after work 3 or 4 times a week.  Then a longer work out, maybe a swim and bike or a bike and run, on the weekends.  We only did one full run through before the race and man am I glad we did that!  Because I foolishly decided to try to keep up Lauren (aka training partner extraordinaire) on the cycle, which I had no business doing as she is a speed demon on the bike, and in turn I had a major struggle on the run.  I even ended up walking part of the run, which I consider to be a major fail.  But none the less, that is was training is for.  Lesson learned!  Stay at my own pace:)

After all the training came race day (postponed by 1 week due to a jerk named Hurricane Sandy).  The race was spectacularly organized and so official and professional that I was highly intimidated upon arrival to set up my transition area.  But I was happy to learn that the triathlon community is very welcoming and friendly to new comers, so I quickly felt at ease and got down to business.

Highlights of the day were;

-my AMAZING supporters/best family and friends a girl could ask for, who woke up far too early on a Sunday morning just to come and cheer me on as I huffed and puffed my way through the race!

-seeing loads of beautiful star fish and sand dollars during the course of the swim (case in point why the Bahamas = best triathlon location ever)

-getting a trophy for first in my age group!  (small caveat = I actually came 2nd in my age group to my speedy gonzales training partner.  But since she was the first woman over all, I got to win our age group by default.  But hey, I’ll take it!  A trophy is a trophy! haha.  Ps. said trophy is now proudly displayed on my bookshelf)

So, in the end, I now consider myself hooked on triathlons and immediately began planning for the next one!  I highly recommend anyone to give it a shot.  Whether your goal be just to finish, to beat a personal best, or to win, a sprint, olympic distance or ironman.  The key is to enjoy it the whole way!  A fellow racer said to me “how come everyone else is grimacing in all the pictures of the race, and you are smiling?”  I said “either a) I wasn’t trying hard enough, or more likely b) I was having blast!” A smile is always better than a grimace!

My advice is challenge yourself, do something outside of your comfort zone, and most importantly SMILE while doing it!  Oh and have an awesome outfit to do it in, preferably including some version of pink…

xo Céline