My life...just not on the road I expected (but it's still dang good).

Greece Part II

From Santorini we flew to Athens.  It was madness!  Remember... I didn't have the hotel information, but I did remember the name.  How bad could it be?  We showed-up in Athens unknown to us right at the beginning of the riots, rented a car and headed into the heart of the city to find the perfect hotel at the base of the Acropolis.  3 hours later (after much excitement) Karen took this picture.

Needless to say, Athens was not my favorite part of Greece.  We got lost getting into and out of the city, but relief was to come...

A few hours North we happened upon this great pizza joint that was as excited as I was to let me walk into their kitchen and pour my own beers.

We spent much of the trip lost, but "the Journey is the Greatest part", right?  This journey was more special than most!

The first glimpses of Meteora are pretty profound.  This is way North in Greece with a major Slavic culture shift from the islands.

This hotel, again, was wonderful!

Kind of a bed-n-breakfeast atmosphere.  The owner sat down with us and encouraged drinking of multiple bottles of their wine and an awful candied watermelon treat.  Karen couldn't eat it, so whenever the owner would turn-around she'd throw it in the bushes which seemed to work until the bees showed-up!  At one point Karen left our room door unlocked and Grandma freaked-out... Karen came to me (enjoying the wine) with concern, so I went to talk to Grandma (not in English).  She just kept making these spitting gestures in disgust of the door being left unlocked, we both laughed (Grandma and I) and she gave me more wine... guess you had to be there.

Meteora is surrounded by amazing Monasteries that you can spend days touring and feeling very close to God.

That's a Greek cat.

We hiked from our hotel to a cliff overlooking the city.  On the way we found pomegranites.  I'm not sure where you're from, but a wild pomegranite is a big-deal to us.

Not sure what these are, but I'm guessing they're not edible.

Wonderful photo and memories.  As you can imagine... self portraits like this require a whole-lot of finger crossing and sprinting!

We found a secret church in the cliffs above Meteora.  This is the kind of place that proves your faith.

A Greek tradition is to bless jewerly and give it away.  We found necklaces and bracelets for each of the kids and prayed over them in our secret church.

That is what I look like when I'm satisfied.  A few days in Greece with the women you love is all it takes to solve the worlds problems.

 

Cheers,

Josh

Me again (Karen):

1. Josh had free reign with the text on this one. (I'm not home to proof it, so I've just got my fingers crossed.)

2. This trip was all the way back in September 2010 (and I'm just getting around to blogging it now) when I was teaching (photography) in Greece.

3. The next photography class that I'm teaching abroad is this coming October in Ireland with Scrapmap and Ali Edwards (and there are still a few spots open if you want to come - just click here for more details.)

Greece Part I

Hello everyone... it's Josh making a guest appearance on the blog.  Don't get used to it, I'm only here because Karen thinks I'll remember more about Greece than she will.  Maybe it's because of all the exotic Mojitos she drank while there.  And, since Greece isn't well known for their beer... here it goes.

Karen left for Greece 10 days or so before I did, so I could show-up and take a quick trip around the country with her.  I spent a few months planning our travels and the day before I left my computer crashed before I had a chance to print any of our itineraries, travel reservations or hotel reservations and this was a complicated one including planes, boats, four-wheelers and rental cars with (3) different hotels.  How could I be stressed though... I was on my way to Greece to be with my wife!

I came through airport security in Mykonos to see my wonderful wife, tanner than I had ever seen her wearing a small white dress and pointing a camera at me.  I should have turned it around and got a few of her.  Somewhere between San Francisco, London and Athens my bags forgot to get onto the plane, so I showed-up with the clothes I was wearing and one change in my backpack.  We would be moving all over the country in the next few days so I figured the chance of ever seeing my bag again was slim... but I was in Greece with my wife!  Karen took me to the hotel where she had been teaching and introduced me to a few of her friends.  We ate and drank and were merry.  Finished the night enjoying the cool breeze overlooking the Aegean sea.  Not sure why that guy is staring at me in the photo, but it freaks-me-out a bit.

 The next day karen showed me around Mykonos before we boarded a "sweet" ferry to Santorini.  The first of many self-portraits.

The "sweet" ferry... a hydrofoil named the Flyingcat3 does something like 70mph through the Aegean.  Karen spent the trip sleeping and I spent the trip drinking Heinekens and trying to remember the names of the Hotels and travel reservation details.

We arrived in Santorini and were immediatley bombarded by locals trying to give us "cheap" rides to our hotel which I kind of knew the name of and remembered what it looked like from the picture.  It was white with blue trim... #*?! , all the hotels were white with blue trim!  I was hoping there would be somebody waiting at the ferry with a big "Downs" sign, but no luck there either.  Karen kept her cool while I didn't and encouraged me not to meet the Santorini cops and not to rent a car from a very good salesman.  Nonetheless we miracously found somebody waiting for us and got a ride to the hotel.  There was a porter (I think that's what they're called) that wanted to carry our bags down a 1/4 mile of stairs to the hotel, but there was no way I was letting another dude carry Karen's bags.  And, yes, as you can tell from the picture... some of the porters are donkeys.

Santorini was by far my favorite place in Greece... for many reasons.  The hotel was absolutely wonderful.  It overlooked the Aegean and a dormant volcano which the sun sets into every night to the cheers of everyone on the island.  While checking in at the hotel I noticed a bag in the corner that looked just like mine, wait a minute, it was mine.  How it got there I have no idea nor did the people at the hotel.  Everything was good... I was in Greece with my absolutely wonderful wife.

Santorini has an abundance of cool places to eat, drink and...

... get strangers to take horribly out of focus pictures for you.  If I remember correctly this picture was taken by the owner of a restaurant that wouldn't leave us alone about eating at his place.  The fact that he was infatuated with my wife was funny at first, but quickly got irritating.

This picture is of some guy that looks a lot like me, but poses real corny for his wife.  Hey, I'm just writing the story, not choosing the pics.

That's a picture of the same guy that looks like me, but has a really weird picture taking stance.

Told you there was an abundance of bad photos from others.  Guess Santorini doesn't know about www.snapshotsofagoodlife.com?

Karen makes photos of me look way better when she is in them, eh?

We rented a four-wheeler for dirt cheap, but realized we wouldn't make it to the gas station because the owner who requires you bring it back full, then siphons the gas and sells it got a bit over zealous.  I talked him into a splash of gas and we were off.

Driving in Greece is crazy... driving a four-wheeler in Greece is insane!  The, A bus passed us next to a cliff around a blind corner kinda crazy.  When I returned the four-wheeler I left Karen at the hotel and figured the owner would bring me back to the hotel in his car.  I was wrong.  He decided to use the four-wheeler to take me back... him driving and me holding-on through the crowds of Santorini.  It was memorable.

Waiting for the world famous Santorini sunset!  Maybe God delivered my bags to the hotel?

See all the white hotels with blue trim I was talking about?  Also see all the people up on the ruins waiting for the sunset?

Yeah, baby.  That's one of those exotic Mojitos I was talking about.  I love everything about that pic!  We had dinner and watched our first Santorini sunset at the first retaurant that said they could make a Mojito.

See how much better she makes me look?

The morning after.  Karen was just getting excited about running, so after breakfeast we rode to a remote part of the island and did exactly that.  By the way... Greek island breakfeasts are great!

On our way to what we thought was a cool old church that turned out to be an active crematory (by active I mean smoking) we came across this old gate in the ditch.  Karen wanted it and I wanted it for her, but the thought of smuggling a hundred pound steel gate out of the country was daunting.

The ruins on the highest peak of Santorini.  Getting there tested my Greek four-wheeling abilities and I'm not sure that Karen realized her life was at risk the entire trip up the mountain.

If you don't know Karen then you have no idea why table number four is such a big deal.  This table overlooks what at the time of the photo we had no idea was a nude beach.

Our nude feet!  I think the Corona commercial guys might have stolen this photo.

We swam in the Aegean which is way-cool because the salt content is so high that you can float effortlessly.  We spent a lot of time in the water splashing around like little kids and before we knew we were 100 yards or so out at sea.

Cheers!

Wait, I think this might be the restaurant with the owner who hit on my wife.

Are those people in the lower left of the photo wearing robes? 

That's it for Wonderful Santorini.  I want to go back right now.  Karen, I need inspiration.  You're wonderful and I Love You like Crazy.

BTW - This post was way funny before Karen edited it.

Josh

A note from Karen...

1. The next teaching trip I'm doing is in Ireland with Scrap Map and Ali Edwards this coming October (and I heard there's still a few spots open if you want to come. Click here for all the details.)

2. The dress was gray, and it went past my knees.

3. I only made two minor edits to keep things PG.

In the Last Few Days

Haven't been shooting all that much in the last few days, but I did manage to snag this one while Josh Downs and the girls were watching the olympics (gymnastics) last night...

And some other random stuff from the last few days...

1. It's usually Annie who mispronounces words since she's still little, but yesterday when Courtney Lee mentioned that Annie has a lot of handy-downs (hand-me-downs) I couldn't quit giggling. (I love it when my kids mispronounce words so much that I usually don't correct them.)

2. Josh's grandparents celebrated their 53rd anniversary and his parents celebrated their 27th.

3. I ran this morning for the fist time since the triathlon (two weeks ago) and it felt pretty good.

4. I ate a hamburger at Josh's parent's house and it was delicious. (Once or twice a year, I'll eat a McDonald's cheeseburger...ick, I know...but I haven't had a real burger in probably 10+ years.)

5. I took Coley to lunch a few days ago and we sat outside on the patio and had a long talk about why he doesn't have all the things a lot of his friends have (namely cable television, video games and annual trips to Disneyland), and as I went to explain the reasoning behind it, Coley interjected and explained it for me, which either means that we're doing something right, or I repeat myself so often that my kids have all of my spiels memorized.

6. Josh has been running like crazy because he's doing the Cascade Lakes Relay again this year. (One of his legs is 10.8 miles and the first 3.7 miles are all uphill.)

7. I had a dream the other night that I was catching a bus with one of my friends and as we were getting seated, I noticed that President Obama was driving and he was talking about how he had recently made the decision to fill all government positions with cowboys because he knew they would get the job done better than anyone else.

8. Josh Downs spent the entire afternoon yesterday making certificates with funny nicknames on them for everyone on our softball team and looking all over town for first-place ribbons to hand out at our end-of-the-season softball pizza party last night. (He took a Sharpie pen to the #1 and changed them all to #7.)

9. I cleaned all day long yesterday and the house is still a mess. (But all my bathroom drawers are spotless, my pantry is organized, and every nook and cranny in both of the girl's rooms are clean and tidy.)

10. Courtney Lee and I sat in my car outside of Josh's work the other day and had a long talk about some of the mistakes I made as a teenage girl and a lot of the things I believed about myself that led me to make those mistakes. (I hope the lies I believed about myself will help my girls to know the truth about themselves.)

11. I've been working on editing the shots I took in Greece (almost two years ago) and its bringing back so many great memories. (I'll try to post them tomorrow, but will probably have to rely on Josh Downs for the dialogue, because my pea brain can't remember details from two years ago.)

12. We all walked to dinner (Mexican) the other night, and as we were walking, I was thinking about how I hope that small memories (like walking to dinner together in the summertime) will be some of our kids favorite memories.

13. This summer isn't panning out to look anything like I had envisioned it would, but I'm realizing that that is one of my biggest problems...I waste so much time visualizing what I think things should look like, that I sometimes miss the beauty in how they actually turn out.

14. That's all the randomness I can think of.

4th of July, Part V

It's kind of ridiculous that it tooke me five separate posts to share all of our 4th of July pictures.

But (as much as I dislike the saying) it is what it is...

We all slept in since we had been up so late the night before.

And then we ate breakfast.

And then the kids goofed off while Josh and I packed up.

And then we rode our bikes down to the store.

And Annie pitched the biggest fit she'd pitched in years (because her dad wouldn't let her spend her money on junkfood.)

And then we took the boat out for one last spin around the lake before heading home.

And that's (finally) it.

This 4th was kind of an important one for me.

It actually marked the one-year anniversary of what has been to date, the hardest time Josh Downs and I have ever gone through in our marriage.

In fact, it was during our last 4th of July trip that I actually threw out the 'D' word. (The first and hopefully the last time.)

It was just weeks before he was scheduled to deploy and for months it felt like every time we started to recoup from one hard thing that had been thrown our way, we were hit with another.

It was all stuff that is unique to blended-families and in general, Josh and I handle that stuff pretty well because we recognize and accept that it's all a part of the natural consequences related to divorce.

But this stuff was harder than normal and combined with the stress of him leaving, it felt insurmountable.

And looking back, I realize how ridiculous it was to even bring up the 'D' word, but at the time, it felt like it was the only way out of all the hard stuff that was going on.

And my poor sister (who may never go on a family vacation with us again) was there for all of it.

Thankfully, when the kids overhead me talking to my mom just a couple of weeks ago about how hard that 4th of July trip was, they all said, "We didn't know you and dad were fighting - that was like the funnest 4th of July ever."

And in a way, I guess that means we did our job as parents well.

But this 4th of July?...This one was a beautiful one (and completely D-word free.)

The Believers

We ended our first slow-pitch softball season on Sunday in seventh place out of ten teams.

We lost seven games, won two and tied one.

And my husband only got into it with the umpire once over a bad call made against me, when a runner slid into second and hit the ball out of my hand with his knee.

I only brought my camera once too, and I only took a few shots (I was the only second baseman, so I had to snag what few shots I could get while we were up to bat.)

Me. (Josh Downs took that one from the dugout.)

Josh's brother, Jamey. (He hits far.)

And Josh.

He ordered the shirts (A lovely shade of OSU Beaver orange of course.) and chose #4444 because four is my favorite number.

And you can see his calf muscles through his socks.

Every Monday morning, Josh would send the team an email to recap Sunday's game. I saved all of them, but here's one of my favorites...

Morning Believers,

That was a fun game! You all played wonderfully in-spite of the sun, wind and big bats. The highlights:

• Louise caught everything thrown at her on first with the sun in her eyes.
• Michelle kept everything in front of her at right even with a bunch of knarly lefties.
• David ran his tail off at Rover.
• Kinsey held her own at home.
• Karen made a bunch of sweet stops and a nice catch at 2nd all while looking great!
• Karen said I shouldn't mention in the email the one fly-ball she dropped, but David thinks I should...what should I do?
• Jamey made a nice catch in left.
• Chris stayed for the whole game.

Until next year Believers!

The Day

I loaded up half-a-bazillion children (My kids, my nieces and a Ninja T, who you may remember from my crew.) in the car yesterday with the promise of lots of fun...

First stop was lunch at Red Robin, where Courtney Lee locked my keys inside the car. (Courtney's mom gave her bangs and temporary pink stripes in her hair and every time I look at her now, I'm taken back by how old she looks.)

Which allowed Josh Downs to save the day by showing up with a spare key.

Next stop was the movies.

And then the water park.

And then the playground where they pretended to be a family, run by a drill-seargant mom (Courtney Lee), who blew a whistle every morning and made her children stand at attention for roll call before going on about the rest of their day.

And when Josh got off of work, he met up with us again.

Just in time to head to the Yogurt Hut before calling it a day.

And that last shot (taken by Coley) is just proof that I was there.

Hope you're week is going great.

4th of July, Part IV

Much to my surprise, it was the girls (not Coley this year) who wanted to wake up at 4:00 a.m. to go fishing with their dad.

And Courtney Lee was the only one to catch a fish...

And as soon as they got back, Josh Downs started grilling french toast on the BBQ.

And then the girls and I got started on a cake.

Spice cake.

Cream cheese frosting.

Blueberries.

And strawberries.

And then there was some more ladder ball.

And then Courtney Lee rode her bike down to the store (It's close enough that you could see it from the cabin we were staying at if it weren't for all the tall trees in the way.) to get a cube of butter and some mayo and a bunch of other stuff I had forgotten. (She thought she was going by herself, but we made Coley follow behind to keep an eye on her.)

And then we had some lunch before sending the kids inside to take a nap (so they wouldn't be tired/cranky for fireworks.)

And then we sat outside and read.

And one of the old, blue camping-chairs (that I had before I even met Josh Downs) finally gave up on being a chair.

When his butt fell through the chair and hit the ground, I said, "Maybe I need to get some new camping chairs?", to which my husband (who doesn't like to spend money on anything) replied, "No, I think these ones are just fine."

Nevermind the fact that the kids (except for Annie) have all outgrown their tiny chairs, that they're all full of burn holes from sitting too close to the campfire and that only the person who is lucky enough to snag the OSU Beavers chair gets to be comfortable.

A few minutes later he said, "Ok, we need new camping chairs, but let's not get crazy.", which is his response anytime I mention spending money.

I just started laughing because really, how does one get 'crazy' with camping chairs???

And then I started waking-up the kiddos one by one because we needed to get some dinner in their bellies before heading out for the lake to watch fireworks.

They were a hard bunch to wake-up though.

And then we got to the lake just as the light started looking pretty.

And then we had cake.

And played Poorman's Poker.

And sang this really funny song we had heard on Kid's XM the day before. (I have not idea what it's called, but it's just all these characters saying words like, gazebo, spatula, tuberculosis, etc. at a pace that kind of turns into a song.)

And once it got dark, we watched the skiers do their run down Mt. Bailey with flares (and laughed about how Courtney Lee thought they were carrying sparklers) and then we bundled up in blankets and watched the fireworks.

And I put down my camera because sometimes, it just feels good not to shoot.

4th of July, Part III

And the final shots from the first day...

4th of July, Part II

Remember when I said I had 100+ images that I wanted to keep just from the first day of our 4th of July trip up at Union Creek???

Well here's some more of them...

Towards the end of the day, we decided to go fishing down at the creek

Surprisingly, the girls did all the fishing (though they didn't catch anything) and Coley just ran around (with a bad attitude) exploring everything.

In this house, you get your ear pulled by your dad when your mom wants a kiss and you refuse to give it to her on account of your bad attitude.

And then your dad climbs a tree with you.

And then we went back to camp and ate dinner.

We were supposed to have fish tacos, but I got frustrated at the grocery store - so frustrated that I called Josh Downs so he'd talk me out of abandoning the half-full cart, but his advice was to leave it all and come home because he thinks I spend too much money on groceries anyhow, so I ignored him and finished grocery shopping, apparently forgetting half the things on my list, including the salmon I needed for fish tacos.

So we had bean dip and fruit instead.

The kids were relieved because they hate fish tacos, but since life isn't all about them, we still eat fish tacos sometimes (unless I forget to buy the fish.)

And then there was a muscle-flexing contest...

I know. Soft focus. (There's no crime in loving a soft shot.)

And then Josh Downs started hitting marshmallows into the woods with a plastic spatula while the kids raced to find them, brush the dirt off of them and eat them. (It's kind of a lousy shot - but it's the only one I got where you can see the marshmallow - it's over there along the edge of the viewfinder on the right.)

And then we made smores.

And part of making smores means that once the chocolate runs out, Coley and Josh Downs spend the rest of the evening catching the remaining marshmallows on fire, one by one.

Normally, they stand the marshmallows up on a graham cracker bridge, hanging perilously over the campfire and as the bridge gives way and the marshmallow lights up, they laugh and cheer and high-five one another.

It's a boy thing I guess, because us girls don't find it nearly as entertaining as they do. 

This time though, they turned all their marshmallows into little 'marshmallow men' before lighting them up.

Much more entertaining.

The Deschuttes Dash

It took months before I felt ready to write about last year's triathlon (my first), but it only took one day before I felt ready to write about this year's (my second)...

I drove over to Bend by myself.

Josh and I just decided that I needed a good nights sleep on my own and that he'd drive over with the kids in the morning.

So I made the 3 1/2-drive, checked into my hotel around 2:30, picked up my race packet at Fleet Feet and went to buy a smoothie before meeting up with my mom, who had driven over the day before with Rudy.

Then we decided to drive the 25-mile bike route just to see what it looked like.

It looked hard.

And then we took a peek at the transition station before heading out for a quick dinner.

I was back in my hotel by 6:30, packing my race-day bag and trying to settle my nerves.

I turned out the lights at 9:00.

I was still awake at 12:00.

And then I woke up every 30 minutes or so until my alarm went off at 6:00.

And so I drug myself out of bed, washed my face, chugged a bottle of water, threw my bag over my shoulder and rode my bike down to the Les Schwab Amphitheater, where the race was taking place.

And then I set up my transition station, shoveled a peanut butter protein bar and a green machine smoothie in my face, met a student of mine in person for the first time (Hi Coreen!) whose husband and son were also doing the triathlon and then I debated on whether to wait at the transition station in hopes that Josh Downs and my kids would arrive so I could see them before the race started or to go hunting for a porta-potty so I didn't pee my pants. 

I opted for the latter and as luck would have it, I ran into Josh Downs and the kids on the way (and he just happened to have my camera with him too.)

And then we said our hello's and our good-bye's before I jumped on a shuttle to get to the starting point for the swim.

And then I stood there, amongst a couple hundred people, all in wetsuits and yellow Deschuttes Dash swim caps, nervously awaiting my heat to be called.

And once they called the third heat, I waded chest-deep into the 62-degree Deschuttes River, making sure I was in the back of the pack. (Fewer people to swim over the top of me.)

And then they blew the horn and I started swimming.

It wasn't pretty, but it was better than last year's swim and that's all that counts in my book. Honestly, my main objective for the swim was not to panic like I did last year, and though I had a few moments that verged on panic, I never panicked.

I was even able to freestyle swim about 95% of it (though my face was above water most of the time.)

All that said, I have to admit that I chose this particular triathlon solely because the swim route is a downstream route that a dead body can float in 28 minutes.

So I figured if 28 minutes was the worst-case-dead-body scenario, I was up for it.

And who cares if some of the leaders from the fourth heat (that started five minutes after mine) passed me - I was just excited to pass one guy in my own heat.

Actually, on those rare occasions when I've passed someone, I always feel bad and stall next to them for a few seconds, trying to think of something encouraging to say.

But in this case, I was too busy trying not to drown to offer words of encouragement.

That's me in the middle.

And that's me too.

The sun was in my eyes and there was fog in my goggles so every time I passed a bridge (There were three.) I would holler, "Annie and Cole, I love you!" in the hopes I would spot my family. (Courtney Lee was with her mom and Ross couldn't make it.)

It was as I passed the last bridge that I heard them holler back and could see their silhouettes waving at me.

And then Josh raced down to see me get out of the water and to take a few shots of me transitioning.

I wish I could say that was me on the left with the glasses, and the red & black suit, and the sinewy triathlete body, but alas, that is me on the right, with the swim cap and the wetsuit and the big ole' butt, that doesn't resemble a triathlete (literally) in any way, shape or form.

And then I was off for the bike-portion of the race.

And yes, my initial assessment of the course was correct. It was indeed, very hard.

There was only about a 300-foot elevation gain during the first six miles, but then a 1200-foot elevation gain on the next 6.5 miles.

But I just kept on peddling and praying and every time I passed someone, I talked to them for a bit - usually telling them how many uphill miles my odometer said we had left and reminding them how good the downhill was going to feel.

And every time someone passed me, I forced myself to say, "Good job.", and remembered the broken promise I made to myself during last year's triathlon to get a better bike. (I've got kind of a hybrid bike - it's not a mountain bike and it's not a racing bike - it's something in between - but I'm trying really hard to be the kind of person who is happy and content with what they have, so I opted to keep my bike, even though it's not made for speed.)

And after I turned around and started the downhill decent, I continued trying to encourage the people still biking uphill on the opposite side of the road by hollering, "Not much longer, you've got this!", until I caught on to the strange looks and realized that I was cheering for random bikers who weren't even signed up for the triathlon.

And that's me (25 miles later) coming back from the bike.

And no, the guy that's smiling in front of me with a kid in tow wasn't doing the triathlon - apparently he was just there taking a leisurely bike ride with his son to make me look bad in my photos.

And then I transitioned for the run and took a few extra minutes to love on my kiddos and to get a photo with them.

A few minutes out of the transition station, the guy ahead of me turned around and asked, "Do you think we're even going the right way?", to which I replied, "I think I had a nightmare just like this last night."

Thankfully, we spotted a red arrow (and a porta-potty) just a few yards ahead that told us we were indeed going the right way though.

And then he and I passed each other a few times before I finally pulled ahead.

And at about mile three, I passed a triathlete in his 80's and when I jokingly said, "I think the finish line is waiting just around the corner for us!", he asked, "What have you been smoking young lady?"

And at mile 4.75 when I passed another girl about my age, I looked at my Garmin watch and said, "Only 1.25 miles left to go!" which caused her to express her undying love for me.

And at mile 5.5, I spotted my husband, who was there to run alongside me (in a pair of flip-flops) for the last half-mile.

And as we neared the finish line, he said, "Finish strong." and walked over to the sidelines so I could run it in on my own. 

And then I saw my mom with my kids and my camera.

And I crossed the finish line, happy to see that (unlike last year's triathlon) there was still a crowd.

But the only crowd I cared about was the one that circled around me with hugs and flowers and chocolate milk.

And the final stats, with some comparisons from last year...

It's an olympic triathlon, so it's a 1-mile swim, a 25-mile bike and a 6-mile run.

The swim: 22:59 this year, compared with 46:48 last year. (Again, I had the downstream current working for me this year, which made a huge difference.)

Transition One: 5:07 this year, compared with 6:50 last year. (I can blame my long transition time last year on the fact that I was crying and called Josh Downs - who was in El Paso getting ready to deploy - during the transition. I have no excuses this year though. I was just slow.)

The bike: 1:45:49 this year, compared to 1:58:10 last year. (I don't remember how much of an elevation climb there was last year. I just remember that there were a few miles that were insanely steep and I had to repeat the loop three times which stunk. This year was just an out and back loop, but 12.5 uphill miles is hard on the legs and the spirit, even if you know there's 12.5 downhill miles coming up after it.)

Transition Two: 3:43 this year, compared with 4:01 last year.

The run: 1:07:37 this year compared with 1:19:18 last year. (I probably walked about a mile of last year's run and stopped to drink water and cry in that lady's bosom at one point during the race, which inevitably added to my time. This year, I ran the whole course though, with the exclusion of three short but steep hills where I decided that my energy would be best-used by walking briskly and a few quick stops for water because running while drinking water always makes me choke.)

The tears: 0 tears this year, compared with lots of tears last year.

Overall time: 3:25:16 this year, compared with 4:15:10 last year.

Placement: 188 out of 208 this year, compared with 180 out of 183 last year.

And yes, that means that 187 people finished before me and only 20 finished after me, but somehow, it still feels like success.

And did you notice that I didn't even wear long pants to cover up my sausage-legs???

Big success.