Manatees - 2018 Edition Now CLOSED (Page 3)

Welcome Michelle!  Please, if you have them, share photos of your babies!  Especially Isaac on the bike!  Man, maybe if I got a bird for the back of my bike I would ride faster

Welcome back Nancy! 

Hello! Are you looking to join the Manatee group? If so, please post a bio! Do you have a race in mind? If so, look at the training plans on the site, they should give you good ideas how to build your distances.  Based on your experience at Muncie, it looks like you could benefit not just from OWS experience, but time in the pool. Can you get to the pool before work?  I know a lot of us swim early, like 6 am. In my experience, most pools have lap swimming around that time.  I'd also look to see if there is a masters swim team at the pool you can join (and swim early with).  It would/should give you lots of guidance.

Hope this helps somewhat! Good luck.  

Bart gets the zoomies and does laps around the living room, including the couches in his rounds.  Bart and Lysi get the zoomies together outside.  Lysi is so nasty, grabbing Bart by the tail cause she can't catch him!

Welcome Ally, Chris2, Angela and Jen!  Jen, I know what you mean about cat anger....since we brought Bart home (dog #4, and much larger and louder than the rest), Spartacus only comes downstairs when Bart is out of the house or in his ex-pen....I am hoping that once Bart settles a bit (he is just 7 months) then Spartacus will figure out that he is quite sweet, just big and loud!

Welcome Ellie!  I am just north of you in Vancouver, BC.  There are a couple good open water swim races here in the summer.  One of my favorites is the Canada Day Challenge, which is held in the lake that a lot of triathletes train in.  C'mon up next summer if you can!

The weather in Orlando has been miserable for 2 , now into the 3d, day. This is not normal!! Hopefully by lunch today the sun will come back out! It will be colder than normal for us, but should be great running weather for you.

Reading this made me laugh because Lisa said the same thing in her training blog when she got started around Thanksgiving :-)

Welcome, Angela!

What Ann-Marie said, I get to the pool when it opens so that I can get my workout in before heading to work. In my area, lap swimming is in the morning, then water aerobic, more lap swimming (not helpful to me due to work), "family swim," and finally the kids teams get the pool.

Another to look into is a masters swim group. Would a group that has masters swim at the noon hour work for you?

And yes, a bio wold be appreciated.

If Bart is anything like Zoe, that could take years!

We need a Bart photo in here!

Originally posted by glfprncs Greetings to all of my fellow Manatees! I'm so happy to be back. I'm enjoying my last week of Christmas/winter/holiday break before starting the 2nd semester on Jan. 8. "The boys" (our 3 dogs) are especially enjoying have both my husband and me home for the past few weeks. I included a rather large picture of our 'baby,' Edward. I realize it's cold everywhere, but this Ohio transplant to South Carolina about froze to death during my 5 miles on the track this morning. When it's usually in the 50s and you wake up to temps in the teens and a 14 mph wind, it certainly is a shock to the system (I did my long run on Saturday in short sleeves and shorts by comparison). Hope everyone is having a great 2018 thus far.

Edward is a cutie!

A lot of the issue with colder than normal runs is that we simply haven't invested in the appropriate running gear for the one week a year that this might happen. (Let's hope that it's just one week!)

NAME: Laura Baron

OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook, Instagram (@baron.laura), Strava (hit me up here! I need more friends! https://www.strava.com/athletes/23781050 )

STORY: I've been here on BT a long time (member ID 3341, if you can believe it) and did triathlons for a good chunk of that time. From 2005-2010, I was heavily involved -- got as far as doing a few half ironman races, helped friends train for their full IM's. Throughout all of it, I hated (no, you don't understand ... HAAAATED) swimming. Like, I would get to the pool for a workout and sit on the edge of the pool for 30 minutes dreading the moment of sliding into the cold water (and it's almost always cold). My swimming progressed from "looking like a drowning person" to "looking like a really slow but probably not in danger of losing her life" kind of swimmer and decided I had enough. I was an adult. If I didn't want to swim, I didn't have to. 

From there on out, I focused on running and biking (running is my first love). And then, starting around 2012, I got hit with a really bad depressive episode that took me a few years to work myself out of -- in the meantime, I had stopped training entirely, unless Olympic Cookie and Ice Cream Eating is a thing. Gained 50 pounds and now -- finally -- mentally healthy and looking to get back to being physically healthy as well. 

FAMILY STATUS: Single with a benevolent canine overlord (she's mostly benevolent, at least ... until she's hungry and thinks I'm not being quick enough to feed her. At that point, she attempts to throw her food bowl at me. Lord help me if she ever figures out how to actually do that...)

CURRENT TRAINING: Since running is where my heart is, I'm training for a half marathon at the end of April. Robin (ceilhdh) and I will be getting together in Louisville to celebrate our return to action! I'm also going to try and start biking again, mostly because my friends are all triathletes and this would be something I could do with them (also also also -- a newfound love of mountain biking! what fun!!). Also on the training regime (though not swim/bike/run related) is a lot of hiking as I'm hoping to do the Wonderland Trail hike towards the end of this year.

THIS YEAR'S RACES/EVENTS: The only race firmly on the schedule -- The Derby Half Marathon (https://derbyfestivalmarathon.com)

GOALS/OBJECTIVES/DESIRES: Ideally, I'd love to get back to where I was before the depressive mess -- pretty fast runner, decent biker, reluctant swimmer. Mostly, I want to be able to get up and go and be active and not deal with my heart pounding so hard that I fear it literally coming out my chest.

WHAT MAKES YOU A GOOD MANATEE: I thrive on accountability and community. I figure y'all probably do too. So, with any luck I'll just slip in, make myself at home and help support everyone else in their goals.

Welcome Ellie and Laura!

Welcome back to Jim, Dave, Stacey, and Anne.

I'll get the roster up-to-date ASAP. :-D