And things went just as you would expect...

So, surprisingly enough, the Visa office was a disaster. Long story short, there were a lot of tears, new paperwork needed that involved getting a police report, more tears. Really. At one point I was just sitting on the U2 with tears streaming down my face, not even bothering to wipe them away, or care that I looked ridiculous. When I finally made it back to the Visa office with the "new paperwork" they were as nice as could be and acted as if it was all completely normal. Ugh. Oh, and my car fell through and we found out that a woman at work died from an illness that was very unexpected. Seriously, bad things just keep happening. Obviously some WAY worse than others. But, sometimes I wonder if it ever gets any easier. Life that is. Kids started back to school this week and we were super busy. I had a pretty busy weekend, Kirtag with some friends from work on Friday afternoon, an Italian dinner, long run in the rain on Saturday and then some time to relax at home. Well, until another fun Austrian experience, picking up my phone. After waiting in line for about 45 minutes, they gave me back my iPhone saying that it worked, but it wasn't charged so I couldn't check. I told them I wasn't leaving until it was working. So, after they charged it for a bit they couldn't get it to work. Their suggestion? Take it home and see if it will work. If not, just come back next week. Um, not going to happen! I must have looked ridiculous, but I just stood at the counter and refused to move until they had my phone working or a new loaner phone for me. The guy just kept repeating to me that it wasn't his fault that my phone didn't work. I just kept saying that I didn't really care who was at fault, I wasn't leaving until I had a working phone. Eventually he got it to work. This place is killing me. Really, it is. I went over to a friend's house and met some new teachers at the other school and saw some other friends, it was so relaxing! I left early and came home and painted my entryway, I ran out of paint mid way through though, so will have to go and pick up more paint and also get some white paint to touch up the ceiling. It already looks so much better! Sunday was a long bike ride with one of the new teachers at my school, it was great to find someone who wants to ride! And, this weeks bike/run was not nearly as painful as last weeks. Which is good since I have a race soon. I met some friends at Starbucks and then went and saw a movie. All in all a pretty good weekend. Still feeling like life is an emotional roller coaster, but maybe that's just how things go. I'm trying to figure out how to prepare and pack for Fall Trip and the Race. I have about a zillion things to do before I leave, including picking up my bike and the rental car, but also trying to pack some food. It would be easier to just eat the hostel food, but it's so bad. Just not worth eating. Sure hope the bike fits in the car... Still can't believe Steve backed out of our car agreement. And, of course it was after I had given away my free car, and rumor has it that the person that I gave the car to just turned around and sold it.I will be so disappointed if that's true. Time to sleep as next week will be a busy one!

Ask. Believe. Receive.

Tomorrow will be good. The Visa Office will be fun. Public Transportation will go smoothly. Ask, believe, receive. Right?! Ha. So, being back in Vienna and back to work is well, manageable. I really feel I am a summer person. Or maybe just a part time worker. My job is fine, but I really do love spending my time doing what I'd like to do when I'd like to do it. While I realize this is not necessarily a reasonable expectation, it doesn't mean it can't be what I want. Not too much to report. I'm trying to have an attitude of everything works out the way it's supposed to and all things will eventually be fine. But, I tell you, if I could just fast forward to the part of life that seems normal and good, I would do that. I am finding myself wanting and thinking things that just aren't that nice and I'm not used to that. I am hoping to have a car soon, which I know will make life a whole lot easier. For every person that has made different suggestions on how I could use and appreciate my time on Public Transportation, I just want to say NO THANKS. I'm sorry, spending two hours of my life five days a week to commute?! Totally unreasonable when it could take about 30 minutes a day. I'm not sure what I was thinking the last 4 years not having a car. And, looking forward to weekend trips and just little things like driving to the store, buying more than what I can easily carry, shopping at a grocery store that is slightly larger than a gas station convenience store in the states... I also am in process of painting my apartment. So far I have a few walls finished and the taping done, but I need to figure out how I plan to reach the high parts. Last time Steph did it for me. I guess I need to make a new tall friend. Preferably one that speaks English. Kids start this week and next week is Fall Trip and then the Half Ironman. I feel so unprepared. I swam for about 40 minutes today, I should probably do that every day till the race, not because the last minute training will actually do anything as far as time, but it might calm me down a bit. It is a near panic attack when I think of those open water starts! Why do I do these races again?!

Fast Forward...

Somehow time has just escaped me, instead of any sort of detailed account of anything, I'm just going to do a quick run down of the highlights of the last 10 months and then try to keep up better from now on... I'm sure I am going to leave out some important things. November - Malta with Heather for Thanksgiving, we had a great time and the weather was nicer than I expected it to be. December - I went home for Christmas, which was awesome, as usual! January - Rome for a conference and then extended the weekend to hang out with Anika and her sister, we had a great time! February - A marathon in Germany, I can't even remember the name of the city with Steve and then to Seattle for February Break. March - Paris for my first ultra marathon, and an annoying injury I'll get to in a bit April - Rpad trip through Spain with Mel and Amy, and we also saw Heather in Barcelona. May - Last minute trip to Barcelona to visit Heather, long weekend in Nice with Mel and Cathy and an awesome weekend in Copenhagen with Anika, where we found her wedding dress! June - Zell am See to finalize some wedding details with Anika, spa weekend with my mom at Loisium Spa, a week in Nice with my Mom, Boun and Mia, Stacy, Claudia and Chelsea and Steph and Eddie's awesome wedding in Vail, CO with friends from Dubai and Vienna, such an awesome time! July - Home for the summer! I spent time at the beach house, up at my sister's and in Portland. I also did three races, an Olympic Distance Tri in Seattle, a 50 mile bike ride in Hood River and Cascade Lakes Relay with my new best friends. August - Back to Vienna... Sad. This last year was as crazy as any other year. I overplanned and ended up traveling way too much, but looking back I have no idea which trip I would have given up! I went to this small artsy town in the Czech Republic with Claudia one weekend too, but I'm not sure when that was... I also went on a day trip to green lake. I'm still training and "racing" or at least signing up for races. I started with a trainer this year, I thought she was crazy in the start, as the first thing she did was cut back my training, which made me insane. And forced me to lie to her. I decided to get a trainer because I had signed up for the Nice Ironman again and also wanted to do my first Ultra Marathon, the Eco Trail Race in Paris, which was an 80km race, with a friend Gail in March. When I tried to work out the training on my own, I realized I had no idea what I was doing. Long story short, she did an awesome job training me, I guess less is more. I was convinced she was crazy as she had me sign up for a training marathon in February, but my longest run before that was only 2 1/2 hours, I didn't think there was any way I would be able to do a marathon. Steve and I woke up the morning of the race and it was snowing and freezing, I was feeling far less than confident. I ended up finishing in 3:48, my second best marathon time. I decided she knew what she was talking about. Ha! I had a great time at home in February, I just spent the week in Seattle, it seemed to short to try to make it to Portland also. The race in March was awesome! I met up with Gail and some of her friends for dinner the night before and four of us set off the next morning to do the 80km and another two people were doing a different distance. The race itself was pretty awesome, it was a trail run that ended at the Eiffel Tower. You had to carry all your own things, so I was wearing a back pack and a lot of clothes, it was quite cold. There were some rolling hills, some flat sections and some steep sections that you had to walk up, single file, and at the end there was running through the city of Paris at night. Overall, I thought the race was pretty fun, easy to say when it's over! I took off at the start and ended up running by myself, the other people stuck together. I felt good throughout the race, but when I looked up at one point and saw the Eiffel Tower and knew that I still had 20 km left to go I was annoyed and just decided to run as hard as I could. I didn't even bother to stop and fill up my camel back, I couldn't be bothered, and ran out of water before the end. It also POURED down rain the last hour or two and was pitch dark. Fun. As I was running through the Paris streets I was looking at all the people dressed up and in fancy restaurants, drinking wine and wondering why that wasn't my idea of a vacation! During the race I felt fine, but after my leg started to hurt and by the time I got off the plane in Vienna the next day I was in excruciating pain and could hardly walk. Condensed version... it was a partially torn tendon, stress fracture and a torn muscle. It had me not running, on crutches and in PT. I was an absolute disaster physically and mentally for weeks. I didn't realize how much a part of me running was, take that away and I just went crazy! After a while I could bike and swim, but running took a while and the PT was incredibly frustrating. My foot just wouldn't do what it was supposed to do. It also made for a pretty difficult trip to Spain as I couldn't drive and had crutches. ANNOYING. Work was annoying, everything was frustrating for me. I was not able to do the Ironman in Nice, which was also frustrating. My mom was already coming over, and my friends were doing it, so I still went and cheered everyone on. That was hard! I think it has been just over a month that I have been allowed to run over an hour. Now it is "healed" but my foot still shoots out to the right and I sometimes walk funny, putting my toe down first. Whatever. I was able to comfortable complete all my races over the summer, so it must be ok. Summer at home was great. The wedding and Vail were awesome. I rented a car the whole time and will definitely do that again! I also signed up and did the three races and they were all good fun! The tri was especially fun because Gavin and Ella did the kids tri after, it was SO fun to watch them! The HR bike ride with Amy was great, and then I met two friends and we spent the weekend just hanging out and of course eating at 6th Street. I also met up with friends from Vienna that live in Trout Lake now, and also Lindsey and Simon, so great city and great people. The CLR was awesome. I only knew one person, but got to know everyone else and had a great time, the relay races are just awesome. Somehow, running three legs and not getting any sleep is fun. Who knows. Work was crazy as usual, I like what I do, but sometimes it just seems unreal. Steve and I are no longer together as of a couple days ago, so that should make this year in Vienna interesting, as I really don't like the city/people very much. I find it cold and lifeless. I'm really busy through October though, so that will help I think. Crazy schedule. Sept 1 is the Half Ironman in Zell am See, the next weekend is Loisium Spa for Anika's party, then meeting Heather and Gail in Brussels for another trail run, Steph gets in the next weekend, then it's Anika's wedding in Zell am See, then hopefully Whitefish, MO for a training for work, then the next weekend is the Amsterdam Marathon with Heather and I think I'll just stay the rest of the week as it is October Break. Need to stay busy to stay sane..! I'm sure I left out a number of really fun things I did, but... that's the way it goes. It is going to be a goal of mine to keep up with this better this year! Won't be a hard goal to meet seeing that I haven't written in nearly 10 months...

Moscow Impressions...

Moscow was amazing! I flew in on Saturday afternoon/evening and struggled to stay awake as the driver took me to our hotel. I'm not sure why I was so tired! I arrived at the hotel around 6:00 to find Kristin laying in bed. Good, we were both exhausted! It was a great hotel and so fun to see Kristin! We just talked and had wine tasting and dinner at the hotel the first night, and tried to figure our what we might want to do for our time in Moscow. Neither of us had an agenda, which was great, and were pretty much up for anything. We decided to head towards the Red Square and The Kremlin the first day, but first stopped at this cute local place that we just found while walking towards the center of town. It was delicious!

The Red Square, St. Basil's Cathedral, The History Museum, GUM Shopping Mall and The Kremlin, including the State Armory, were amazing. Every time I glanced at the Cathedral, it just took my breath away! I think we walked about a million miles. We also saw a Russian Circus, I'm pretty sure it would not have passed any US standards as far as animal rights, but it was very cool. They did this huge water finale, that was pretty amazing. A few of the animals looked pretty mad though... We also went to the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer, Gorky Park, which was supposed to be like Central Park, but seemed a bit run down, saw the old KGB building and also the Bolshoy Theater, which was beautiful at night. Red Square at night was pretty amazing too. I think I took about a million photos. We toured the metro stations one day, they were beautiful and so clean. We went out for some great meals, my personal favorite was finding a Mexican place, Casa Agave... it was SO delicious! Nachos, chile margarita and tacos... what more could I ask for! The best part of the whole trip was spending time with my sister and just walking around the city. It was so different than what I expected. It was way more beautiful, I was expecting a grim and dark city and instead found a beautiful city, with gorgeous buildings and churches, it was amazingly clean, the people were not outwardly friendly, but helpful when we looked lost and confused, the shops were all top of the line and the malls reminded me of Dubai, super fancy. We spent a fair bit of our time relaxing in the hotel too. It was truly an amazing city and experience! I would definitely recommend Moscow to anyone, would love to go back and it made me want to go see St. Petersburg too.

It was really nice to have time in Moscow and still have a few days to relax in Vienna before going back to work. I went to a Pumpkin Festival yesterday with Amy and her kids, it was awesome, I LOVE stuff like that. Then Steve and I just hung out and went to our favorite Italian place for dinner... life is just easy right now.

And, what's nice, is it is only Saturday afternoon...

The fun continues...

I just can't believe how great this Fall has been! Claudia and I had a great time on our little road trip. What I'd like to know, is why when the Garmin says "off road" and we are literally in the forest on a rough, dark, dirt road, we listen. Ha! Then we arrived to our hotel, only to find out that we only had reservations for the Saturday night. They had a hostel room available. Hilarious. It all worked out just fine, but I will say, the bathroom was more than a little scary and the bunk beds were quite funny. I wouldn't say I am particularly artsy and the town was supposedly artsy, we found some cool ceramic places, ate some great food and had some good wine. Then, we stopped in Durnstein on the way home and hiked around a bit and stumbled our way into this really cool festival and had some wine and pumpkin soup. It was an awesome afternoon. Work is really busy and the days are just flying by. I signed up for an 80km trail run that ends at the Eiffel Tower in March and am also signed up for the Nice Ironman in June. I tried to work out how I would train for both, but decided to leave it to the experts and hired someone to develop a program for me and this online training/coaching thing. So far it is going ok. She cut back my training hours a ton, so I am sneaking in runs and adding in extra minutes to what she does have me doing. And, half of it is in German, so it's been a bit tough, but I think I will eventually get used to the German and also I think soon she will catch up to the amount of training I want to be doing, till then I'll just continue to lie a little. Ha! I do really like having a point to every workout. I also tried cross fit the other day, very fun. I'd like to do more of it, we'll see if I can fit it in. Weekly dinner with some friends, weekends filled with sun and pumpkin soup, great training, life is going pretty well. I am for some reason just loving life in Vienna these days. I still can't stand the people and find them rude, but maybe I'm just getting better at ignoring them. Yesterday was Ironman Kona, loved watching it! I was going to go over to a friend's and watch it, but somehow going for Dr. Falafel and a bit of shopping turned into a Wein and Co. afternoon, followed by nachos at Champions American Bar. Delicious. Next weekend I am meeting Kristin in Moscow, can't wait!

Fantastic Fall!

Life in Vienna, it's been good lately! Things are still a little crazy, but going well. I love this time of year, it's pumpkin soup, fall colors, bright blue skies, warm days and cool nights. I've even gotten my boots out. Although, today I have been trying to force myself to switch over my closet to Fall/Winter clothes and store the summer things, and I just can't do it. In fact, even though it is freezing out, I am wearing a tank top and jeans. And, have been successfully avoiding the task by catching up with friends on Skype and cooking for the week. Apparently I think the world is ending, I bought enough food over the weekend to feed an army. Then I made enough turkey chile to feed a family of five for a week or so. Whatever. Since a few of us bought dirndls, we have been looking for excuses to wear them. We went to a festival the other weekend, and all I can say, is I felt like I went to a costume party, but was the only one that dressed up. Ha! It was fun though, and I did eat some pumpkin soup. Oh, so last weekend a friend and I decided we would go on this "trail run" and meet her boyfriend and his friend at the top for a little lunch and then take the gondola down. Without going into too much detail, that is definitely not how it worked out. We never did find the trail, or make it to the top, and at one point as I was holding on to a stump and looking left and right and wondering what in the world I was going to do, totally stuck and terrified... I realized that we were those people, you know, the ones that you hear about on the news that had to be rescued by helicopters and they had no food and water and what were they thinking, they must be complete idiots? Well, we were those people. Obviously, we did eventually make it down, but it was quite an experience. One that I don't need to have again. Training. What am I training for? I have NO idea, yet I am up every morning going for a run, at the gym after work and running home and doing rides on the weekends. I feel like I am training for nothing, but harder and more hours than when I am actually training. I added in weight training and that seems to be going okay. I did sign up for the Nice Ironman and am already totally excited about it. I did a hilly ride this weekend, and hope to do MANY more so I can do the hills better in Nice this time around. I am already planning on going to this weekend training camp in Nice in the spring. I'm not sure what the dates are yet, but will sign up as soon as they are posted. I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I want to do next year, life is good and easy here, but is it time to move? Try a new school, city and life? While I haven't made any final decisions, it's looking like another year or so here in Vienna. I want to buy a car and get a real phone when I do make the decision to stay. We'll see though! It's a normal Sunday of cooking, cleaning and relaxing. I might make some cookies in a bit. Or not. Next weekend Claudia and I are going to Slavonice, it's supposed to be a cool, artsy town right across the Czech border. I'm really looking forward to it!

Wrapping up, well, another summer.

Everyone keeps asking, so how was your summer? Do you smile and answer, oh, it was great! As usual it was really busy, running around visiting friends and family, but I loved every second of it. Or, are you honest and say how it really was?! Depends on the day I guess. So, as I mentioned before, I had a pretty crazy summer with a couple trips home and a trip back to Europe for Ironman Swiss. Now, I'm back in Vienna and things have just not slowed down at all. Let's see since I wrote last I've done quite a bit! I'll try to keep it short, but it will be long I'm sure... I flew into Vienna on a Thursday night and flew out Friday to meet Stipan in Croatia. He was visiting family in Croatia and well, why wouldn't I fly down and meet him for the weekend. We were on an island right off from Split and stayed at this apartment that was directly on the water and amazing! Excellent food and weather, I think it had been six or seven years since I'd last seen Stipan and some things just never change. Friendships like that are rare and I truly do LOVE that while we did the normal catch up on life thing for about 30 seconds, it was then just about the now and having fun! Which we did. I went on some great runs, rented lounge chairs and flopped around in the water a bit too. Wonderful. Work started that Monday, crazy and jet lagged, but all went smoothly. My boss is back, he was working as the high school principal last year, which made for a tricky year. I learned a lot. About what, I'm not sure. But, I'm just really happy with how things started off so far! A lot of people say that if you didn't work you would be bored and that there isn't enough things to do. I disagree completely. I feel that I would easily be able to fill my time. But, since that isn't really an option at this point, my job isn't so bad. I work with some great people and the travel from here is awesome... hard to complain! But, I do manage to complain often enough... I did an awesome race, I hadn't really been "training" in any organized fashion, just did an "active recovery" after the Swiss Ironman and then tried to get in as much biking, swimming and running as I could. Of course, the running is easy to do while traveling, but I did manage to do some of all of it. Then when I was back in Vienna I decided to make myself go swim in the Danube as often as I could and then just go for it race day. The race was a 70.3 Half Ironman in Zell am See on August 26. It was GREAT. Mel and Claudia came out with me, we rented a van and an apartment and we were off on Friday afternoon right after school. Of course, I was angry and annoyed leaving Vienna, I swear, I cannot get out of this city without some type of circular route and there is nothing that annoys me more than wasting time. But... once we were on the road, it was a pretty good drive and the place we stayed was great. Saturday was the "fun day" of driving the course, getting the bike checked in, registering and going to the race briefing. I always think I won't get that stressed out, but I do. Oh well. I met a friend at the race briefing, it was nice to have someone to talk to about the race. Mel and Claudia were trying on dirndls and of course I wasn't planning on it, but ended up trying a few on and then buying one. As you do...! We drove what we could of the bike course, racked the bike, packed the transition bags and had a great dinner! Of course, before dinner we tried on our new dirndls and drank wine. Yes, the night before race. Ha! I was feeling pretty relaxed and had no real expectations about the race, the only reason I was even doing it was because I had broken my ribs and wasn't able to race the St. Polten race and this was the only one I could transfer it too... I also decided that I thought I could go faster than what I did in my previous races, so I was just going to go all out all day and see what would happen. Mel, Claudia and I went to a place for dinner that someone recommended and it was delicious. Came home, stayed up for a bit and then went to sleep. The race didn't start till 10:00 the next day. Very annoying! Race Day! I was up before my alarm and drank some coffee and ate a leisurely breakfast. Seemed weird for a race day to start so late! I packed up all my stuff; we were planning on just leaving straight from the race so we could get home at a somewhat reasonable hour, I was thinking the race would take me between 7:00 - 7:30 hours. Mel and Claudia dropped me at the race, I walked around, checked my bike, put on the food/gels/water that I thought I would need and was just sort of standing around for a bit. Suddenly it was time to exit the transition area and head towards the lake. I stuffed myself into my wetsuit after covering myself with the body glide, no need for wetsuit rash anywhere. It was a water start, which I had never done before. Right when I walked in, I saw my friend, and we just stood there talking and waiting for it to be time to start. The buoys just look SO far away. Soon it was time to start, I just hung back in the water, near the stairs and decided to let everyone else start and I would just follow. I was not the only person with this idea. It was a wave start, which I liked for a number of reasons. I was in the first wave, so I LOVED that there really was no way I would be the last person out of the water and there would be less people swimming over me and maybe the kicking and crazy start just wouldn't be so bad. Well, no such luck. The swim starts are just plain scary. The pros got a bit of a head start and then we were off! It's so exciting and so many things just are rushing through my head. I don't really get the random cheerleaders, but they were there doing some cheers, they played what I can only guess was the National Austrian Anthem and we were off! I just kept thinking, swim your swim, don't worry about what anyone else is doing. Breathe. Swim. Kick. Don't let it bother you if anyone kicks you or if you are being passed. Just swim your swim. I actually felt pretty good during the swim and the course seemed easy to follow and I could see a balloon that I was swimming towards, which was awesome. Although, when I asked my friend about it, he said he didn't see a balloon, so maybe it was my imagination. Either way, I felt like I was at least swimming a fairly straight line and only getting hit and kicked a little. I knew the fastest swimmers in the second wave would catch me, so when that started happening, I again, just kept telling myself swim your swim, don't worry about others. The kicking and hitting was pretty bad through the whole race and especially bad around the corners. I think triathlons are all about talking to yourself... The swim seemed to go really fast and really slow all at once, when I looked at my watch when I got out and saw that it was 44 minutes, I was thrilled! I was hoping for less than an hour, so it was much better than I expected. Transition 1 I have NO idea what I do, or what takes me so long, but it seems to take me forever to get off my wetsuit, into my bike gear and all that whatever. Bike: So, one word could describe the whole bike ride. RAIN. Yes, once again, racing in the rain. It really does crack me up, I have only ridden my bike twice in the rain and both times were races. It actually didn't even bother me really. I'm not sure how or why I wasn't freezing. Ok, so the bike course... we started off on a track and left the transition area and were off... the course was mostly flat and through some small towns and around the lake. It was an awesome, fast course, mostly on closed roads and bike paths. I'm not sure if it was the wave start, or that I swam faster than usual, or what it was, but there were a lot of bikers around, I was passing some people and some people were passing me. I felt great on the bike, it was absolutely POURING down rain, to the point of not being able to see and having to slow WAY down. I saw a number of crashes and ambulances. It was a little scary to be honest. It was a two lap course that was well marked as far as where to go, but not marked with distance markers at all, I think I only saw four or five the entire race. I think the rain kept a lot of people from coming out, but when there were plenty of volunteers and in the small towns, there were some people out. It was really fun to see Mel and Claudia in Zell am See. It's funny how motivating and exciting it is to see people you know! They were awesome. There were some times when it was just insane rain, like can't see in front of you, huge puddles everywhere, getting soaked by your own bike and people as they pass you. Just plain crazy. Like I said before, I felt like I could go faster on the bike, but didn't know what would happen to my ability to run, but decided I didn't really care and would just try it out. So, I didn't ride all out, but harder than I normally would and somehow managed to finish the bike just over 3:00, which SHOCKED me. When they waved me in towards the transition, I felt like there must be some mistake. But, there wasn't. Which is also funny because I felt like I was actually having to slow down because of the rain, yet still got a time I was super happy with. Transition 2: Once again, SLOW. Although, this time, I feel like I had a bit of an excuse. While I didn't feel too cold, my fingers were numb and earlier on the bike I could barely open up the bar I wanted to eat and ended up dropping half of it because I couldn't feel my fingers. So, the volunteers actually had to tie my shoes for me! I did eventually get into my running clothes and off on the run. Run: The run course was a three loop course that went through town and then out along the lake. It was still pouring down rain. It took me a few minutes to settle into a running mode, but I felt pretty good and didn't look at my watch right away, I told myself I had to wait a bit. By the time I looked at 4km, I felt like the race was practically all over, only 17km to go... easy enough and I was feeling good. Running through town was fun, lots of people and you were seeing runners come towards you since it was an out and back course. I love that. And, I love getting those bands! I saw my friend on my first lap out, he was already finishing! Amazing how jealous you can become of colored arm bands. I think I spend half of the time on the run looking to see how many colored bands people have and how many kilometers I have left and when will I be back in town, and, will I see Mel an Claudia? I think the only thing I am not thinking about is running. The aid stations were a mess, it almost felt dangerous to run through them with all the cups everywhere, funny for how organized the Austrians are to have the aid stations be such a mess. But, it was fine and with the rain and the puddles, it was just like an obstacle course. At some point I realized I might be able to finish the half marathon in less than two hours. Two hours and twenty minutes was my goal, so I was really happy! Towards the end of the run, I was starting to feel a bit tired, but overall I felt great. No pain or sick feeling, just a bit tired of moving... and not really looking forward to driving home. At the last lap I had asked Mel and Claudia to not go pick up my bike and instead meet me at the end, I was finishing the race about an hour and a half earlier than I thought I would, so I was HAPPY! Finish Line: It was such a great feeling to cross the finish line and I was THRILLED with my time. I was not expecting it and loved that I felt good and finished strong and faster than anticipated. Mel and Claudia were at the end. I had to run in, change, grab my medal and then I thought we would be off to get my bike and then head home... but that's not quite what happened. Funny thing, they didn't really mark the run course and somehow we managed to get our van stuck on the race course. Oops! We did eventually get the police to lead us out, but not before we actually saw a car HIT a person. Everyone was ok, but unbelievable! So, we picked up my bike, then had to go back to the apartment, which ended up being really nice to shower there and not in a rest stop, which is what I was going to do. So, we managed to get ourselves home, it was late, but we did make it! Not fun to get up the next day for work though. The next week was uneventful really, just trying to get back into work, the weekend was wonderful. I did a long bike ride, went to Dr. Falafel, all the things I missed! The next week we went did our Fall Trip, I went to Hallstatt, Obertraun and Bad Ischal with the 6th Grade team and it was as exhausting as it always is, but I did have my first pumpkin soup, which was very exciting! This last weekend was great too. Mel and I did some dirndl and lederhosen shopping, met a friend Carol at a Meet Up French Wine and Cheese tasting that was really fun and went to a harvest festival in a dirndl the next day and the weather was awesome! Now it is just back to work... and tomorrow I am going to attempt to get my Russian Visa to meet Kristin in October. They ask that you list off every country you have been to in the last 10 years and which years... scary to say I have NO idea and I just looked through my passport and hoped I got it all straight. I have heard nothing but nightmare stories about waiting in line at the Russian Consulate and having to go time and time again... I hope that it just doesn't happen like that for me, but I guess we'll see! Oh, and I signed up for the Nice Ironman 2013. I am so excited I can't stand it. I am going to hire a coach this time I think. We'll see...