Pilgrimage to Ironman Florida

Okay - this adventure is not ALL about how to become a yachtie. That part just took over the beginning of Florida for us. But luckily, we had family force us into an impromptu road trip because....

My brother-in-law Ryan is a pro Ironman triathlete. 

What?! Yeah, I know. He’s crazy. And until now, we’ve never had the opportunity to see him race in person. So when we found out that he was competing in Ironman Florida - a mere 12 hour drive around the gulf.... what were we to do?

We haven’t been on a road trip since our little jaunt around the Pacific North West when we sold our house. We were due for another.

And - in a scene straight out of Friday Night Lights (Clear Eyes, Full Hearts!) we came across a High School Football game. Guys, there were lights. There were cheerleaders. There was a f*cking MARCHING BAND!!! I was clearly overexcited about the prospect of sitting down for the remainder of the game and soaking in the Cross City Super Bowl.

But with an early race start looming and many hours left to drive, Juliano’s logic won out over my pee-my-pants-intense excitement. Damn him.

Ironman spectating should be a sport in itself. Seriously, it’s hectic. My sister-in-law Lauren is the race-watching guru. Ryan raced for 8hrs 45mins, and we saw him 6 times. Running into the water, out of the water, transitioning, running past, transitioning, biking past, finishing. 

You can read Ryan’s account of the race here; he talks jibberish about electrolytes and bike wattage. He came in 15th overall which is pretty badass of him.

As a person who’s neither athletic, nor competitive - I find competition at this level hard to relate to. This dedication to pushing and training to shave minutes off your time and beat just one more person through the gates is admirable. But for those of us that think walking across a parking lot is a hardship - doing anything for nine hours is insanity. 

Ironman has a cutoff time of 17hours. SEVENTEEN HOURS! You can deliver a baby in less time than that. It’s probably more pleasant. Knowing it was our first Ironman experience, Ryan and Lauren brought us back to the race for the end of the line finishers. The people who complete the race in the last hour have no business running an Ironman. They are not elite athletes, they don’t have top of the line gear or sponsors. But holy shit do they have some spirit. 

If you pass the finish line the announcers shout out ‘YourName, you are an Ironman!’. It’s a cool moment and a very clear goal for many of these end finishers. It was heart warming to watch people brutalize their bodies and overcome their physical boundaries to achieve these immense goals. I’m in awe of what people can do when they put their minds to it. 

Congrats Ryan on a great race - and thank you for letting us into your world!

Side note: Ryan is cooler than I give him credit for. If you want to check him out here’s his Blog, Facebook and Twitter. 

SPLURGE! Video Camera Edition

Juliano has by dying to make videos for awhile now. We wanted a video camera that would:

• Shoot in HD 
• Shoot sports/fast action videos
• Not need to be hand held (Helmet-mounted)
• Waterproof/resistant
• Easy to use/upload
• Be small/light
• Fairly indestructible for travel

We bought the Drift HD170 Stealth Camera to do the job!
Pros: All of the things above. Plus Juliano's happiness.
Cons: Hardly any... the mic isn't great - so voices have to be quite loud/clear to get heard. It only comes with a fish-eye lens, which is really cool for sports - and takes some getting used to for everything else.

There's a water proof case that you can buy as an accessory, but Juliano's MacGuyver-ing together a case for scuba diving. We'll post some videos here soon!

SPLURGE! Macbook Air

They finally arrived! Our little 11" twin babies! We're so excited, it's like Christmas day around here... Here's the scoop:

We had some problems that needed to be fixed:

• Our laptop was almost 5 years old, and dying a slow dinosaur death.
• We needed to be able to communicate to each other & home easily and simply
• I want to continue keeping up this blog - photo saving/editing/organizing required
• Juliano wants to create movies using his video camera - video editing required
• I wanted to promote synergy with music, communication, email/Internet use, photos & videos
• We needed laptops that fit in tiny spaces, and were light & portable

Solution: 11" MacBook Air for each of us! Yep, two of these sweet ladies are now part of our family. We bought them refurbished, so we saved some $$ while still getting awesome computers.

We're hoping that we will be able to:

• Communicate with each other and our home through facetime or skype
• Organize and share our pictures - update: we still have to use flikr to share them
• Create fun movies using Juliano's camera or even iPhone videos
• Share one iTunes account to enjoy music
• Communicate re: budgeting and money through Mint
• Loads more fun stuff and work stuff that want/need to do

Communication is a huge deal for us on this adventure - both to connect with our family and friends at home, and to stay in contact with each other as quickly and easily as possible. There may come a time when we're not in the same place at the same time - and we want to be prepared for that...

For now - We play around and Enjoy!

Update: Stupid Updates! I just deleted my entire itunes catalog while updating my iPhone to iOSX, in order to integrate with iCloud. Damn you technology. Damn you. Going to the Apple store today to see if I can fix it.

Update Update: Those guys at the Mac store fix everything. High Five!

Where do your feet take you?

 How do you document your travels? We've written a bit about our technology choices, but how about our artistic choices? We don't have a specific theme to be honest. Tom Robinson, a travel photographer takes pictures of his feet, along with his wife (and now baby!). Looks like their feet have taken them to some pretty amazing places...

  Source: All Pictures