My Irish

Many years ago I worked for an engineering company - no, I was not an engineer. I was lucky enough to travel to all sorts of interesting destinations and work on fast track projects. I really enjoyed it and I loved getting to meet all sorts of people from all over the world. My favorite project was based in England right outside of London. This was a joint project with Intel Ireland. Intel USA and Intel U.K. Being on a construction site can be somewhat intimidating for a woman - even me. Lucky for me I had a good Irish name and made lots of friends with the Irish lads. One of my favorites was Ben. He had such a thick Irish brogue that I only understood half of what he was saying. I do remember a few things he liked to say that I could understand - his favorite word was certainly the "f" word. The other thing he taught me to say was 33 and 1/3 - when you say it in proper Irish it comes out like "Turdy tree and a turd" or at least that is how I remember it. Anyway - those were good times over in England with all my Irish friends.

Rumor has it that Ben actually gave up smoking and is planning on getting fit! Times have changed!

Festival of Flowers

This was a spontaneous group shot of everyone who happened to be standing close together. I think the reason why I like this shot is because we had all just raced hard and we were happy and we were having fun. We have a great group of people here in SC that we are able to race with. While we might all go head to head at the start line at the end of the day it is more about all the friendships we have made. I would never have met most of these people if it were not for triathlon.

Another Weim Saved!

This is the poor little guy I picked up at the Greenville Shelter on Thursday. They told me he was 2 - after contacting the vet via his rabies tag it turns out he is 13! The people who owned him were going to put him to sleep in January (he weighed 65 lbs then) but a "friend" said they would take him. Today he weighs in at about 35 lbs. How could someone do this to a dog? They should be put in jail with no food! Despite having a bad last 6 months of his life he is more than willing to trust me and is so sweet. It makes my heart ache for him. Lucky for Leonardo (also found out is name from his old vet) there is a gentleman in Greenwood who is retired who is willing to share his home with him so that the last little bit of his life be lived in peace. Tomorrow on the way to my race he will be safely delivered to his new forever home. May he have all the love and all the food he can eat for the rest of his life.

A new ride for the dogs!

The old car just wasn't working out well with the dogs. Squishing 5 excited dogs into a little car to drive them back and forth to the lake to their swim time was crazy with the old car. I figure since everything seems to be dedicated to them that my car should be too. Now they have the car they always deserved! Ok - it does not hurt that the new car also has enough room for my bike to ride inside.

Open Water Swim

The gang getting in some good open water time at Lake Lanier on a Sunday afternoon. There were enough boats on the lake to make it feel more like an ocean swim!

From left to right standing - Eric & Jackie LaFontaine, Pam Ogle, Chad Crocker, Chris Smutzer, Brad Fraedrich, Kimberley Westbury. Front Row - Jeff, Wanda Ocasio, me, Jan Garrett and Chris Giordanelli (AKA G-Man)

Ironman Florida 70.3 (Half Ironman)

Here is our group after the race this picture was much more complimentary than the group shot Kimberley took of us at 4:00 in the morning. We now have a new team rule that no one can take photos before 8AM! The race was much less eventful than the actual trip to Florida. I would post the pictures but they are too graphic. I will say sadly, my bike did not survive. My old race wheels did - I am sad about that too because really I would love a new pair! Chad too suffered a loss and will even be getting a new rear race wheel. Once we all finally left Greenville a few hours later than planned we left any stress back at home and headed down for some fun & suffering in the stifling Florida heat. There is something about this race that gets me every year and for the most part that is my body not yet being acclimated to the heat. We all got through it, Kimberley and I 20 seconds apart. You would have thought we were holding hands or something when in reality we started about 30 min apart. Peter completed his first ever Half. Chad out swam about 2000 competitors (must have been the good coaching). Brad rode his bike like he stole it - maybe the coaching? Maybe the disk wheel? Tiffany and Chad took a nice little walk/run after their bike ride and made some new friends and Amy powered away on the bike for a strong finish.

Regardless of the race we had a fun weekend of good food and friends. At the end of the day isn't that what it is about anyway?

New Uniforms for Malone Coaching

Here is part of the crew racing in our new Uniforms at Langley Pond. The guys got lucky and Hincapie apparel actually gave them long tops - I guess they think it is sexy for us women to have our midriff exposed - I swear the sample that I tried was not like that. Oh well - at least they look good and stand out. We are now technically the Carolina Triathlon Malone Coaching team.

In this photo from left to right Eric LaFontaine, Jim Ballinger, Lisa Anderson, Jackie LaFontaine, Brad Fraedrich and me.