Refuting My Klutzy Reputation

I have a reputation in my family for being a bit klutzy.  The klutzy one, actually.  It's totally unmerited.  Uncalledfor.  Unjust, even.  So  I am officially going on record to say my mom is the klutzy one.

Michael texted me this picture today:

I see no valid reason why this should not be her new facebook profile pic.

Want to know what happened?  Of course you do.

Well, like so many of her stories, this one starts out with I was running, and I tripped over a curb...

Except, instead of ending with a broken wrist or a hip fracture or a cracked rib or a falling-off toenail or an out-of-whack shoulder or a sobbing emotional mess on a street corner (all real-life examples in the last few years), this one ends with and then I broke my face but went for eight more miles.  And this story doesn't even need to fall back on external factors like slippery decks or icy roads!

It took several people (several, as in: more than one) to take note of my mom's post-fall loopier-than-normal loopiness, and get her to an ER.  Where she got a bunch of stitches and the pronouncement of a concussion.  (That's not exactly how the hospital part went but hospital sagas are always boring so I'm not detailing it any more than that here.  Also I  might be a little fuzzy on that part myself.  Again with the boring.)

Oh!  And somewhere in the middle of that story is the part where she says I was reading a nutrition label and that's why I tripped over the curb.  Really?  REALLY?!  You couldn't wait til after your leisurely, just-for-fun Saturday marathon to read about how many calories (well let's just be honest, you were definitely checking for fiber) is in your mid-run snack?  Really?  Mom. Mother.  I hope that calorie fiber knowledge was worth your broken face.

{sigh}

Ok, folks.  Here's the thing.

Once I swam into a wall and ended up with a concussion of my own.

Once I tried to kick a soccer ball, tripped over it, and broke my arm.

Once I fell off my bike while trying to mount it at the beginning of a race.

Once I face-planted into snow because I couldn't manage to get onto the ski lift correctly.  (Okay, maybe that was twice.  Not counting the face-plant when I tried to get down off the ski lift.)  (Fun fact of the day: I'm not a big fan of skiing.)

Once I fell into a bush while wearing a huge drum* and reindeer antlers and because I couldn't get myself up, the other four people harnessed to me (with blinking Christmas lights, as long as I'm painting the picture) couldn't leave either, so they had no choice but to stand around and laugh at me.  One. Time.

Those were isolated incidents, people! 

Yes, I have had moments of klutziness in my life.  We all have.  But my mom's trips and falls and stumbles not only tend to result in real injury, they're consistent.  When I tried to tell her that she was even klutzier than I am, she laughed and said, I know, how said is that?!  Yeah, um... not that sad, if we all stop using me to set the bar for family klutziness, and use you** instead!

Take another look at that picture up there and let it be the final nail in the coffin of MY reputation as the klutzy one.  Kthx.

*Yes I played the energizer bunny drum in marching band.  That makes my band geekiness a little cooler.  It does.

** Or we can use Dad.  I'm not too picky about who I throw under the bus here.  After all, Dad did fall off his roof into an a/c unit this summer, he's chronically battling a sciatica problem that's probably a sex yoga injury, and then there's that one time he accidentally took a chainsaw to my brother's arm.  (Story for another day.)  Really, really, anyone but me!!

German Pseudo-Siblings

So, you might have gathered that I have these German siblings.

Except, they're not really siblings. They're like... people my family has adopted. Except, they're not really adopted... since they're all grownups and technically have parents of their own, albeit on another continent. Because they're German. Except, they're not really German. Two of them have the blue passports even though they were raised in Germany.

Ok this is way less complicated than it sounds, I promise.

Basically what it boils down to is, we have these three people in our lives, and we love them, and we count them as our own. I've got siblings, I've got stepsiblings, I've got sibs-in-law, I've got stepsibs-in-law... and now I have pseudo-siblings. German ones. It's totally worth the complicated "family" tree. They're just that awesome.

First, there's my mom's trainer, Michael. He's brilliant and I'm not just saying that because I love him. He's really smart and he's really good at what he does. (Exhibit A: my mom's before and after pics.) He now also trains my sister Ashley and teaches martial arts to her husband John.Then there's Michael's wife Jessi. She and her sister have an American dad but were raised in Germany. Jessi is loud, smart, funny, loyal, opinionated, and loves red wine. So clearly she fits right in with our family, especially Ashley and me. :) And then there's Jessi's sister Cassi. She's the newest addition to our fold, since she just moved to America this year, in the hopes of eventually getting a PhD in English. Because she's smart like that. (She's actually living at my mom's, in the attached apartment originally built for my Grandpa. I love that my mom has her around.) Cassi and I connected from the get-go. I liked her the first time I met her when she was stateside for Christmas several years ago. And Cassi is actually the reason I wanted to write this post this week. She turned 30 on Tuesday, and I got to go out for a birthday dinner with her. We laughed a lot, and talked a lot about all the fun things in store for her this year. So anyway, I mostly wanted to say... Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Cassi! This will be your year, and it will rock.

These three are a real part of us now. They have been with us on trips (the outer banks and St Croix come to mind), and all three of them were in Germany with my mom to cheer her ironman finish, which was amazing since none of us "biological" kids could be there. We have celebrated pregnancies and marriages and race finishes and births and accomplishments and holidays together, and together we've mourned the loss of several pups and one Grandpa.

I think it's awesome when families grow this way -- just out of love, no "official" connection required. Our family events and holidays wouldn't be the same without these people. I feel honored that they've basically chosen us to be their American family.

I love that I have three extra pseudo-siblings to love, to argue with, to laugh with, and to learn from. Everyone should be so lucky.

Christmas at Marmie's

Our little family embarked on a milestone journey this weekend: we loaded all six of us into the car and headed out of town. I was kind of nervous as we started buckling everyone in (yes, our dogs wear seat belts) when I saw how full the far was. I wasn't sure what to expect on that kind of trip. And the ride was... um, pleasant. Ok that's a lie; it was bad. Traffic slowed us down several times, Nathan refused to nap (even though we timed our departure perfectly with his naptime and even took him to the airport before we left to wear him out) and then when he was finally almost asleep (hours and hours into a journey which should only take a little over two), we kept finding ourselves driving near this ambulance that sent Nathan into whiny hysterics every time he couldn't see it anymore. And when he was finally really asleep, Anneliese decided it was time to wake up, poop, and yell about it. Lovely. Needless to say, she rode the rest of the way sitting in a dirty diaper since we were not about to risk waking up Nathan, or even worse, running into that ambulance again. Poor second child.

Oh, and did I mention how Bowden spent the whole journey trying to decide where she wanted to settle in for a nap, and multiple times decided that on top of Anneliese, in her car seat, was the best choice? Yeah... good times, good times. I think Simon is the only creature in our family who found the whole trip rather uneventful.

And this disasterous ride was all to make it to my mom's house for a Christmas celebration with my sister Ashley and her fiance John, and my mom's trainer Michael and his wife Jessi. (They're pretty much part of our family now.) And once we arrived and got our children woken up and their bottoms cleaned, we really did have a nice time.

We laughed a lot, John and Michael had a tickle fight, Anneliese vogued, we regifted cactus candles. You know, typical Christmas stuff.

Jessi, Michael, Mark, me, Ashley and John -- Marmie's "kids"

Of course we noticed Brad's absense though. I think if Christmas feels like what we remember it from childhood, then no Christmas will ever feel normal again without my brother there. Even though he has lived in St Croix for the last four Christmases, it's never the same without him.

At my mom's house there are like a million stockings since there's one for each kid, each kid's spouse, each grandkid, each dog and each granddog (and granddog-in-law). And after everyone had taken town their stockings and sorted through the goodies, after we had eaten steaks and fish and had good company and lots of laughs and eaten lots of dessert, Brad's stocking was still hanging there, all alone and empty (she had already sent his gifts down to the virgin islands). I don't know, it was just made me miss him even more.So Merry Christmas to anyone who didn't get to celebrate with all the people you love.

For pictures of our celebration with Marmie, click on Anneliese in her Christmas outfit, below.

by mgoetts

IronMarmie

This post is scheduled to go up late on Saturday night here in North Carolina. But one ocean, several borders, and seven time zones away, it's Sunday morning and my mom has taken to the streets and rivers of Frankfurt, Germany, in a quest to become the world’s first IronMarmie. That's right – today she’s doing an Ironman Triathlon.

I should say that again, so it will sink in properly: My mom is doing an Ironman Triathlon.
Do you know how far that is? In case you don’t, it’s 2.4 miles of swimming.It’s 112 miles of bicycling.And when all that’s completed, it’s followed by running a marathon.

Needless to say, this is not a task for the faint of heart. This would be an incredible feat for anyone – there are young healthy men and women, sponsored professional athletes, who have themselves spent hours and hours training for this. But it’s especially incredible for my mom, because she’s not one of those. I don’t know the official stats, but I would wager to say she’s overcome about as much as anyone to make this happen. This is an underdog story at its finest:

1.) This is her first time in an iron-distance event, and she’s a grandmother. This isn’t something that her body has been prepped for her whole life. I don’t know how many other rookie grandmothers will be out there, but I’m guessing zero.

2.) In 2005, four short years ago, she weighed about twice what she does now. Yes, that’s right; she lost almost half her body weight through diet and exercise. She will cringe at my bringing this up again, but it’s worth mentioning (see before and after pictures here).

3.) She has gone through shoulder surgery, two hip stress fractures, and a broken wrist (also requiring surgery) in the last year or so.

For anyone else, any one of those things would have been enough to justify quitting. But my mom does not quit. That’s why I have no hesitation in writing this post and putting it on the internet, even before I hear back from her with the official “I finished!”... I know she’ll finish. No matter how long it takes, whether she finishes in the regulation 16 (17?) hours or if she walks all night, she will cross that finish line.

And I have never been prouder.

(Or stood to make more money. Seriously, does someone want to help me make a movie of this? I’ll sell you the rights and you can do all the work.)

[Edit, July 5 approox 3pm NC time: She finished! In well under the allowed time, just under 14 hours! She came in second in her age group. I am so proud I could cry. Ok, I am crying. What did your mom do today?]

I love you IronMarmie!

Miscellaneous Nostalgia Update

In some ways this has been a lonely week for me. I've gotten all weird and reflective and "foolishly sentimental" as one of my favorite college professors used to call me.

WORK - I am winding down at work, and while that's overall a good thing, it's still sort of sad to wrap things up with my favorite clients, exchange personal emails addresses with my favorite coworkers, and let go of my grip on pet projects that will no longer be my responsibility after next week. It's sort of how I remember the end of a school year. You know it's a good thing to move on, but it's still makes you pause for reflection.

NATHAN - Has been visiting my dad this week, as you know. Seeing as I'm one of those moms who actually likes my kid (and believe you me, there are moms who don't), I am missing him like crazy. My dad sent more pictures this morning, apparently Nathan got to ride a train into downtown Charlotte, and see some racecars up close. Needless to say, he probably hasn't missed us much, but that's actually a good thing. So much better to know your kid is happy and having fun, and loves his Grandpa. I am very very excited to see him tomorrow morning, even though his hugs and kisses will promptly be usurped by another set of grandparents, since we're spending the holiday weekend with Opa and Oma at their new lake house.

MY MOM - Is in Germany preparing for her Ironman this weekend (more on that still to come). I'm missing both her (since I know this is a big week and I very much wanted to be there with her, but Beanie and our budget rendered that too difficult) and Germany itself. Her trainer Michael has been keeping us in the loop with stories and pictures on Facebook (click that link if you want to friend him and follow along), and while it's great to see what they're up to (although it doesn't seem possible that there could be another photo of mom unpacking or repacking their bikes, HOLY COW is she neurotic), it's putting all of my own memories of Germany smack in the front of my mind: seafood being served as whole fish, yummy apple cake, awesome German broetchen from the bakery in the morning, half-timbered houses, cobblestone streets (though I would never ride my bike on them like she is!), and castles. I want to be there, experiencing all the sights and sounds too, with my mom.

Anyway now I am setting myself up on Mark's computer (which will be mine to share, starting next week) and going through some pictures, and smiling because we've really had a fun month, despite the unexpected work/family stress.

We've been swimming at the pool several times, Nathan has figured out how to climb in and out of his little rocking chair (which we found before he was born, in my Grandpa's attic), mastered the big-boy bed, chattered nonstop, and Bowden survived a bite to the head (thanks Simon).

For more pictures of what we've been up to over the last month or so (including several cute shots of Nathan with the train and more racecars this week), click below on his super-cute grin.


by mgoetts

I'm Noticing a Theme Here

After our great family get-together in Millers Creek, and a too-short visit with Lucas Church and family (who also live there... it's a small small world indeed), we headed to Huntersville to celebrate Christmas with mom and that side of the family. And to have my roots done, and get Nathan a much-needed mullet trim. But mostly to celebrate Christmas. (With fabulous new hair highlights.)

Brad and Nikki say 'Merry Christmas' from St. Croix!

Once again it was strange without "baby" Brad around. Even stranger that he sent a stack of Christmas presents home with mom (who spent Christmas with him in St. Croix). And even stranger that they were wrapped. In actual wrapping paper. (I'm convinced mom secretly did it.) In past years he's been famous for "wrapping" Christmas presents in brown paper bags which might or might not have been stapled shut. (Remember how my dad is a bow nazi? Yeah I'm pretty sure the brown bag thing drove him nuts.) Or maybe he only did that once, and Ashley and I decided to make it Bumgarner family legend by retelling the story every year. Yep, that sounds more likely. Anyhow, enough about Brad, he wasn't even there (but thanks for the presents and we really did miss you!)....

Know what was there?

A harmonica. And a tambourine. And a triangle. And a handle castanet. And a kazoo.

Anyone else noticing a theme here?

If we add this to the drum Nathan got this weekend, the singing drum and rolling electric piano he got earlier in December, the spanish maracas he got for his birthday, the recorder in his Easter basket, and the tiger xylophone/piano Mark desperately wanted him to have when he first showed interest in musical toys (did I forget any?).... then we would have a full orchestra, I'm pretty sure. Can Nathan be a one-man band like Bert from Mary Poppins?

Now he just needs a trombone and some organ lessons to round out the holidays. (Grandparents, I am very much kidding.)

It's a good thing Nathan really, really likes musical toys. (He got it honest, after all.) He takes such pride in picking up an instrument and seeing what sounds he can make. Sometimes he can hardly play for giggling when he does it right. He truly is making a joyful noise every time he plays with these things (yes, even the drum is joyful). As a parent, it's amazing to see his face shining with so much pleasure as he figures out and then masters these little instruments. I guess these are all the same reasons Mark and I liked music as kids (and still do!)... It encourages creativity, and instills confidence. Plus, it's loud. (Trying to think like a toddler here.)

And don't worry, he did get stuff besides instruments. Like a great (silent!) puzzle from Ashley, and some monkey slippers for his monkey feet (I have monkey slippers too!) and some mandarin oranges with their own spoon (my mom has a fetish about providing snack foods complete with utensils... don't ask).

When we got home we split his current toys into three batches, which we can rotate out every few weeks so the stuff stays new and stimulating. One doesn't need to be the whole orchestra every time, after all. (Don't worry, there are shaking toys and blowing toys and banging toys in every batch; the band geek in me "orchestrated" that very carefully.)

Anyway we had a great time with mom and my grandpa, and my sister and her beau, John. And mom's trainer Michael was also there with his wife and sister-in-law... we claim ourselves as their American family, especially around the holidays. Nice to have Germans around, for me anyway. Makes me a little Germany-nostalgic, but in a good way.

And thus ends our holiday celebrations. I love my joyful, loud, chaotic family. :)

For more pictures of Christmas at my mom's, click here.

Our First Tri

This weekend Mark and I battled the elements to complete our first triathlon. We've both participated in tri events with my family over the last couple of years - Mark cycling, and me swimming. But we hadn't done one on our own until this weekend. I'm not gonna lie... I'm pretty proud of us.

So when I say "battled the elements" you're probably thinking that we're lazy wimps who only had to battle our own lethargic instincts to make this thing happen. And you would be WRONG. I will prove it to you. In a list. Yes, a list is necessary to make my point.

The Elements:
1.) Slow swimmers. Since this race had a pool start, we each had to enter our 100-yard swim pace before the event. Notice I said pace, which means people should have entered the time it would take them to swim each 100 yards of the 500-yard swim. In fact, lots of people entered the time it would take them to swim 100 yards if that's all they had to swim. As a result, Mark's starting seed was 532 out of just over 600. Mine was 261. After plowing through many mis-seeded swimmers (which was easier for me than Mark... by the time he got in the water, people were apparently just swimming in clumps and it was hard to pass them), I finished 47th out of the women and Mark finished 229th out of the men... way, way better than what we were seeded. What have we learned from this? Next time, we should choose open-water events where we aren't stuck in a lane behind swimmers with falsely fast times..... or we could just falsify our times too, I guess. I mean, isn't that what the sport is about? Who gets to start first?

2.) Falling off our bikes. You'd think that if Mark and I find ourselves to be savvy enough as athletes to sign up for a triathlon, we'd be coordinated enough to stay on our bikes for the entirety of the cycle portion of the event. Turns out, we aren't. Picture this: I have pulled on my bike shorts after the swim, but apparently not all the way... I was still wet, you see, and dampness doesn't make pulling tight shorts over thick thighs any easier. I swing my leg over the seat to mount the bike, and I crash to the ground, caught and tangled by the crotch of my shorts. Do you know anyone else who has fallen off a bike after being tripped by the crotch of her shorts? Didn't think so. Now picture this: I have fallen once trying to mount, have picked up myself, my pride, and the bike from the aquatic center parking lot, have laughed in the face of the volunteer standing nearby who found it necessary to clap her hands and say "good recovery; good recovery" during the whole debacle. I mount again, get my feet in the pedal cages, start pedaling.... and... nothing. The chain has fallen off. My legs are spinning fast circles and I am going nowhere. Fortunately I did manage to get my feet out of the cages and get off the bike before I tipped over again. After a quick chain fix, I managed to get on the bike and stay on for the rest of the cycle portion, including the hills I had assumed I would need to walk. Go me!

Mark's crash was a little more noble, mostly because he has battle wounds to show for it. I wasn't there to witness it, so I can't give you the play-by-play here... but I understand it went something like this: Boy takes turn at high speed. Boy notices pothole. Boy swerves to avoid said pothole while still taking turn at high speed. Boy ends up in concrete median, still clipped to bike. Policeman at intersection inquires about boy. Boy is ok but embarrassed. Boy continues to ride, but covered in significantly more blood and gravel. Poor Marky.

3.) Rain. About 6 or 7 miles into the bike ride (that's halfway, for those of you keeping count), the rain started. We're in the middle of a record-setting drought, and it rains on the day we're doing a triathlon. Of course. Did you know that bike brakes don't work as well in the rain? Mark and I knew... we used bikes as our main means of transportation when we lived in the Netherlands (where it's always raining or almost raining), and our experience with the knuckle-numbing sensations of biking in wind and rain probably gave us an edge over some of the other cyclists. Or maybe not, since at least a hundred people passed me on the bike. I was counting, but I lost track somewhere in the upper 80s, and that was with several miles, a big hill, and a hailstorm still to go.)

4.) Hail. That's right. I said hail. Apparently it was hitting the ground hard and bouncing back up, but I wouldn't know because my sunglasses (ha! didn't need those after all!) had fogged up by mile 10 or 11, and I could barely see where I was riding. But I did feel the pelting on my helmet. I was 95% sure Jesus was coming. Hail always does that to me, but apparently being on a bike and being soaked to the bone highlights the premonition.

5.) Mud. After 500 yards of swimming and 20k of biking, I was almost convinced to just quit the race. I was shivering, and I had finished the cycle portion (which is what I had been most worried about, and which was the hardest thing for me) and I had pretty much convinced myself to just be satisfied with that. But then I decided that even if I had to walk the 5k, I wanted to finish it out. Well, it turns out I would have frozen to death if I had walked (Dad reminded me of that at my transition off the bike), so I ran it after all. And ran it better than I thought I would... I guess avoiding the cold is a good motivator for me! So imagine my dismay when, in the last quarter mile , the course turns to mud and I have to stop running to pick my way through it. It was ankle-deep in some places; I am not exaggerating. And of course the very last portion before the finish chute was downhill, on a curve, in the mud. Which would be fun if we were hot scantily-clad coeds getting paid to mud wrestle. But since we were athletes (did I really just call myself that?) who had just been pummeled by wind and rain and hail, it wasn't all that amusing.

I found this disclaimer on the website of the event's photographer: Note: Due to extreme weather conditions, our staff was unable to photograph all the participants of this event. Um, excuse me? I was out there running and biking and you couldn't stand under an umbrella and take my picture to prove I finished? Actually, though, I forgive them for not getting my picture - they're a small business and they need to protect their equipment... that's a legitimate excuse. And they were probably a lot colder than I was, considering they weren't working out in that mess.

This picture isn't me, but this looks about like I felt, right before the bottom opened up. Cold, blind, slightly confused, a little naive about what was still to come.

In all of the elements, though, I had a surprising ally -- my dad. He came before I even started the swim, and was there at every transition and at the finish, rooting me on. Dad and I have had a rocky time over the last couple of months, but I really appreciated his support this weekend. It was surprising how encouraging it was to have him there, especially when I wasn't expecting it. (Plus, he rescued our towels and sweatshirts out of the transition area and kept them dry in his truck so we had them at the finish - yay Dad!) Mom's trainer Michael also made an appearance driving down the road during my run (and yelling my name.... yes, some things about Huntersville remain small-town and southern!) and then at the finish line too.

At the end of the day, though, we're proud of ourselves. It's nothing compared to what my mom or sister can do, and nothing compared to what our fellow athletes did at the Half Ironman in September, but it's a good start for us.

On an only slightly-related note, Nathan slept through the night at mom's house (for the second time in a row!), and then took a nap the next morning at my MIL's house. This is earth-shattering, people. Just when we had decided he would only sleep well in his own crib, it turns out that he'll do great anywhere - as long as we bring Uncle Nick along!

For more pictures of our triathlon and visit with Dad, click on the bike and me (while we were still friends), below.

by mgoetts

70.3

Can you swim 1.2 miles in extremely choppy lake water?
Can you bike 56 miles through 4 counties - in one stretch?
Can you run 13.1 miles - a half marathon?

My mom can. And she did all three of those things, without stopping, in just over seven hours. Yes, that's 70.3 miles. Which is farther than driving from Raleigh to Burlington. It's like driving your boat around the island of Manhattan - three times. It's like driving from a northern suburb of Washington up to Baltimore, eating a crab cake, and then returning to DC. It's really, really far.

Mom is officially half iron. And I am unblieveably proud. I need a bumper sticker that shouts to the world, My mom is stronger than your mom!

Mom, Michael, and three relays (including Team Goettsch, who managed to beat mom by just a very few minutes) finished the course before the day was over.

Here's how it went down:

We arrived at Jordan Lake early (approximately oh-dark-thirty) on Sunday morning - as my friends would say, even Jesus was still asleep. Someone thought it would be cute to play a get-pumped-up song about how it was the best time of day. Did they think it would be motivating? Energizing? It wasn't. It was, in fact, quite annoying. I was glad when it was over... at least for the 30 seconds of silence before they announced that the water in the lake was officially colder than a baggie of frozen breast milk (not really, it was 78 exactly), and that the race would be wetsuit legal.

Guess who doesn't have a wetsuit?

With Nathan strapped to my front, I proceed to get our timing chip hooked to my left ankle (they were very specific about putting it on the left ankle - I wonder if past racers tried to wear them as headbands or stick them in their underwear or something?), get my body marked with our relay's official race number, watch Mark unload his bike and all our equipment from the car and stack it up in the transition area, then I wander off to find other participants and family members.

Enter Mom (Marmie) and Ashley (li'l sis). Both bleary-eyed. Both carrying buckets of transition-time equipment, like real triathletes do. Both shivering: Ashley from the cold, Mom from a combination of cold, nervousness about the race, and a fear of where/when she will coordinate all of her bathroom breaks over the course of the day. (This is a common Race Day Issue for mom. It always works out fine, in case you were wondering. ) Ashley is frantically trying to buy, borrow, or steal a wetsuit, since she has negative body fat and is starting to worry about the cold water - not so much about discomfort, but about losing her competitive edge. (She's one of the few people present who has a competitive edge, or a desire to do anything beyond just finish her part of the race.)

Enter Michael, aka MA (Mr. Awesome - his favorite word), aka mom's trainer. Bright-eyed. Grinning. (It's his way, even at 5 am... don't you hate those types?) Mumbling to himself in German. Also nervous about lack of wetsuit.

I finally track down Neighbor Drew in the crowds of athletes wandering around. He is relieved to find out the race starts an hour after he originally thought. (This is before the sun comes up and he sees just how far away that last bouy in the water really is. At which point I think panic sets in.)

Then there's Vicki (or Wicki, as Michael would say - why can't Germans get their V's and W's straight? Seriously, compared to the dativ case, it's really not that complicated) and her son Matt. The two sanest people currently present.

We swimmers migrate down to the water, sans warm outerwear, and shiver while the first waves of racers get started. I notice Nathan's chin is trembling - he's that cold. I'd like to say that it's because I was prepared for hot sun, not chilly wind... but I didn't pack a hat or sunscreen for him either; I just had a bad-mom moment when putting his diaper bag together for the weekend. So we strap him to Mark in the snugli and tuck a blanket around all of him - including his head - and he only whimpers a little until the sun comes up. (Except the part where he screamed the whole time I was swimming, apparently.)

Finally, finally, after standing around barely dressed at the lake's edge, it's our wave's turn to start. The water is blissfully warm compared to the outside air temp. Urinating commences (I know I wasn't the only one). Weird white fluid in the water in front of me... diagnosis: breast milk leakage. I swim away and hope that no one noticed (but really I don't care, or I wouldn't be writing about it now). After some last-minute shouts of good luck, we're off!

Ashley is off like a shot, passing pretty much everyone in our wave and lots of people from the earlier waves - she's the first non-wetsuit woman from our group out of the water (32 minutes!)... I try to stick with mom for a while, but then decide she's not swimming in a straight line (I don't need anyone else's help to get off course!) so I abandon that plan. I'm smacked in the face three or four times by waves coming from the right (yes, the water is that choppy, even in the lake.... thank you, windy day) before I decide to stop breathing on that side. I swim into Michael approximately 8,468 times before the turn-around bouy. Shortly after we turn, he starts kicking and loses me (or maybe that's when I start to swim the wrong way). I am convinced that Drew is still with me, on my heels, but it turns out that's someone else - Drew had himself pulled for safety reasons (yes, he's fine - but open water is scary when it's that choopy!) a little earlier. On the way back to land, the water current is in my favor, so I relax a little... and by "relax a little" I mean basically float in the water until I find myself so far off course that my hands are scraping mud near the opposite bank. (Trust me, that's way better than the off-course route I swam in St. Croix last year, which probably took me almost a mile out of the way!) But eventually I finish (52 minutes - not last!), run to the transition area, pass the chip to Mark and he's off for his cycle.

I look around for Nathan and find him in Nick's arms - good, our relay's runner has arrived (no thanks to a malfunctioning cell phone alarm clock and a loooong walk into the race from the off-site parking area). Looks like Wicki has been allowed to start her cycle, even though Drew didn't finish the swim. Since mom was running her bike out of the transition area as I was running in from the swim, I know she has about a 2-minute head start on Mark for the cycle. (Read: Mark doesn't have a prayer of catching her.) So much for me getting out of the water before mom so he has a little jump start. Now we're just hoping he can stay close enough behind her for Nick to make up the lost time on the run.

The next few hours are a blur of people coming and going in the transition area. Matt finishes his cycle and mentions how hard the course was - it's the general consensus of all the cyclers coming back. Their relay, partly thanks to Ashley's speedy swim, will come in 11th when all is said and done - pretty good. Wicki comes back from her cycle sooner than expected, having averaged a faster time than she thought she could; Barbara does some last-second stretching and is off for her run - she manages to stay in front of everyone else we're with, doing the second half faster than the first! Michael comes into transition off the cycle, with Mom hot on his heels... she's a little slower starting her run, seeing as she had to pee on a towel before she could start (I told you these things always work out). She's going to kill me for mentioning it, but it's really funny. Eventually she's off, too, with Frank flapping in the wind. (Since she's going to kill me anyway, I might as well introduce you to Frank. Frank is the skin on her body left over after she lost all that weight. She wears him like a badge of honor and doesn't seem to mind at all that her children treat him like another member of the family.)>
An ambulance leaves. Everyone in the area says a little prayer that it's not their friend or teammate being rescued. Mark is in no danger - we don't know it at the time, but he's riding along happily, until a 69-year-old woman passes him (he can see her age on the back of her calf as she breezes by) and he tries not to feel too bad about himself. Back at the transition area, we notice that the ambulance has actually only moved to a different parking space. [Insert sigh of relief here.] At some point I become aware of the aforementioned forgotten baby hat and sunscreen, so Nathan spends much of the rest of the afternoon with a cloth diaper over his head, making him look like a cross between the virgin mary and a muslim woman. At some point Mark crosses the finish line on his bike, with a big grin and a good finish time (3 hrs, 55 minutes). Nick is off to start his run, but he has almost 25 minutes to make up if he wants to catch mom - we know it's a long shot.

We head down to the halfway point for our runners - Barbara first, then Michael, then Mom, with Nick hot on her heels (go Nick!)... Somewhere between then and when we see them again, Nick will pass mom, then stop 100 yards later to stretch - but mom won't be able to catch him again before the finish. Down at the run's halfway point, a kid is playing bagpipes. Why? I don't know. Maybe that's the triathlon's answer to the football marching band. It's weird, in any case. I take a picture. And video. Um, go team!(?)

We're hanging out by the finish line. Here comes Barbara (so early we didn't have the cameras ready... her finish time was only 6 minutes slower than Nick's)! Here comes Michael! Where are mom and Nick? Who will we see first? It's Nick, coming through the finish line, and mom not far behind!
(Are you singing the Chariots of Fire theme song in your head right now? You should be.)

Mom raced for more than 7 hours straight. And she finished in good spirits (even though we beat her). But honestly, it's impossible to be prouder of our relay beating her than I am of her finishing the race. She did the whole thing and she did it well. CONGRATULATIONS, MARMIE!!!

Want to see more pictures? Click here.

"Hey Mark, which half is iron?"...

... is the question posed last weekend by our friend Madge. Why, you ask?

Because she knows that we are training for a half-ironman triathlon, taking place on September 16. About 15 months ago, my mom decided to kick-start her health routine, lose a lot of weight, and get active again. Since then, she has been experiencing a new life as a competitive endurance athlete.

Her newest goal is to complete a half-ironman, and the one she picked is on the 16th, at Jordan Lake (in the Raleigh area). In order to motivate her training and so she knows she's never in these events alone, Team Goettsch has challenged her to beat us on her own as we do the race as a realy. I will do the swim (1.2 miles), Mark will do the bike (56 miles), and Mark's brother Nick will do the run (a half marathon - 13.1 miles). For me, this has been a relatively easy training process. But mark had to pick up a whole new sport and log a lot of miles on the bike (and in the winter, on the bike on its trainer in our rec room!) in order to get ready for the event. And poor Nick has been sweating mile after mile after mile, training for the half marathon in the awful heat that has been the summer of 2007.

Mom's trainer, Michael, will also be doing the whole race, and there are two other relay teams who will be competing. My sister will be swimming on one of those teams, and Nick's fiancée Barbara will be running on one of those teams. It's shaping up to be quite the ordeal.




Last weekend when Mom was in town, she and Mark cycled on part of the race course as part of their training. Don't they look hot? Despite the fact that mom's helmet is a little crooked, she really is a very "together" athlete and will likely shame all of us with a MUCH better time in the race! Our friends at church are all pulling for mom, so if anyone out there wants to cheer for us instead, please do! (Although I find it hard to get people to pull against a grandmother who has recently lost half her body weight in an effort to get healthy, especially when that grandmother is doing three times more of the race than any one of us young'uns!)


So, I guess... go mom!