A Valentine's Story

I found this story posted on a Triathlon site by a father and thought it worth sharing. Enjoy!

So I take my two boys (8 and 6) to the local Hallmark to pick out cards for their mom. Well, the youngest informs me, to my delight, that he's picked me to be his valentine this year, not Mom.

So he wants to pick me out a card, but I told him I wanted him to do that on his own, to keep it kind of a secret. Since he knows how to read, I told him to just look at the cards that said "Dad" on the tab behind them.

Well, as the oldest and I are in another section picking out something for Mom, the youngest comes over, just beaming from ear to ear. "I want to show you the card I picked out!!" I just can't say no when he's in that kind of mood, so I take the card and flip it over to read it.

It starts, To the man I love . . .

I start laughing . . . but he looks and me and says, "What?!? You ARE the man I love!"

Um, yeah, those things can make a Dad get teary-eyed. So my wife had him sign and date it, so that ten years from now, when he's just becoming a real man, I can pull the card out and exclaim, "Don't you remember when I was the man you loved!!?!?"

Soooo long

I know it's been a while since I've posted so I'll do my best to play catch up!

First food...
Had a great dinner the other night and thought I would share....

Vegetable/Black Bean Burritos!

So, the recipe: (everything organic!!!!)
-1/2 onion, chopped
-ground cumin (i did about a tablespoon)
-chili powder (again, a tablespoon)
-1 red bell pepper, chopped
-1 can of mexi-corn (i was in a rush!)
-1 can of black beans, rinsed and drained
-2 cans of Mexican-style stewed tomatoes, drained and coarsely chopped
-1/2 a jalapeno chili, chopped
-freshly grated cheese (whatever your preference is)
-cilantro, chopped
-whole-wheat tortillas

-In a pan over medium to med-high heat, heat some olive oil (use the kind that is good to cook with) and cook the onion until translucent. Next, add the cumin and chili powder. Do this to taste. I love cumin and chili powder so I tend to use more. Throw in the corn and bell pepper and saute until tender. Add the beans, tomatoes, and jalapeno last. Bring all this to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper then remove from heat.

I heated my tortillas up in a 350 degree oven wrapped in foil for about 15 minutes. Take a tortilla, spoon in your filling then finish off with some cheese and cilantro! Yummy!





Now for the workouts:
Training has been pretty good but a little up and down. Was sick for a little while so I had a week to recover before my Tundra Time Trial race this past Saturday. The Tundra TT ended up not happening for me. I pretty much had a mental breakdown. There was a lot that happened that caused my breakdown but the two main things that led to me not racing was 1) working the night before and only getting 3 hours of sleep and 2) not being prepared (i.e. packing beforehand, making sure I knew how to get to the race site, adequate time to prepare prior to my start time). I've never had a melt down like this before any event and I was really bummed it happened for this race. One saving grace was the race was a 'C' race so if it had to happen, I'm glad it happened at a 'C' race. I toss up the whole experience to some necessary, albeit hard, lessons learned. C'est la vie!

I had a really great base ride yesterday out in the country that made me remember why I love riding. I first got into cycling while living in Tennessee and the ride yesterday reminded me of the great rides I had back then. It's a lot harder to get in these kinds of rides without having to drive far. This one was worth it, though! I rode with some of my multi-sport friends and look forward to doing this ride again soon.

So that's pretty much catches everyone up on what all has being going on with me! I hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week!

Good karma to all,

r