I bought my plane ticket home for Christmas a little over two weeks ago. Not long after I used up my two weeks vacation, does my boyfriend come to me and say he’s going to ITALY. Guess you can say that I’m a little jealous right now, and perhaps wishing I could go with him? Yeah. He’s part of Team Canada in the World Championships for Duathlon. He received all of his Team Canada clothing in the mail all this week, and it looks really professional and super great on him. Seeing how I couldn’t go with him because I don’t have the funds, nor the vacation days to hop on a plane with him to see him compete… in ITALY (sigh!), I told him I wanted some presents. hehe. Italy is like one of the main places I want to visit before I die lol. Italy, Greece, definitely Paris just to see the Eiffel Tower and definitely Singapore … I could go on. But ITALY. I need not be jealous. It’s not healthy lol.

Soooo anyway. I leave you with some photos that were taken last weekend at the half Ironman race. Yippee!

Swim 1.2 miles
Bike 56 miles
Run 13.1 miles

70.3 MUSKOKAAAA

I was joking with my Boyfriend the other week saying once he completes his 70.3 Muskoka Ironman, that he needs to get half of an ironman tattoo somewhere on his body, as completing one of those is an enormouse accomplishment, especially only getting involved with Du’s in 2006 and Tri’s in 2008.

His race went well, of course he wishes he could’ve done better in certain parts of the race. The swim was 1.2 miles, Bike 56 miles and ran a half marathon (13.1 miles) after all of that! It was raining on race day but it wasn’t windy or cold at all, which made it all better for the athletes. His time overall was 5:59! And what a small world it is, indeed. During registration, I glanced over the hundreds of bodies (about 1,800 in the race I think!?) and spotted a guy I knew from Newfoundland! He flew up to Ontario with his wife, just to do the half ironman that weekend. Wild hey.

Ooohhh….I got my photo taken with Craig Alexander the world champion triathlete of 2007! Unfortunately the picture quality is poop because the flash on BFs blackberry didn’t go off. Craig won the race on Sunday as well. He alsooooo won Newfoundland’s 70.3 half ironman distance (that’s where I’m from!) I love it when people know where Newfoundland is located on a map.

The 70.3 distance race was a lot different than the Guelph Lake Tri in August, where a racer collapsed just feet from the finish line and had to be resuscitated with the defibrillator and had performed CPR on him. Of course, everyone was rubber necking and checking out what the deal was, as was I. They backed up an ambulance to the finish line and finally got him breathing again. When the young man was awake after all the mishap on the stretcher, he certainly had a sense of humor… pointing, winking and doing the wave to all the spectators and athletes as he was being wheeled into the ambulance.

So what’s next for this triathlete? Only bigger and better things to come. My BF has already registered for the Ironman Canada in August of ’09 which will be held in British Columbia. I’m already stoked!

(More pictures will be added in the next few days)

Meet ‘crankface’ whom we named Boris.

Boris the Hedgehog was three years old sometime in August (We don’t know the exact date as we got him in October) . He’s an exotic nocturnal animal that runs on his wheel for a few hours a night. Boy oh boy Boris, am I ever glad you’re not in our bedroom anymore. He’s a nervous little guy, especially around me. (We’re both afraid of each other.) His quills (spikes) are for protection, but he wouldn’t hurt you and hedgehogs do not shoot their quills — they can’t. Sometimes they do fall off, however that is rare. If Boris is scared or angry, well that’s another story, since the quills are raised and tend to point in all directions, trying to handle him in this defensive posture is an experience that I’m used to encountering, watching the boyfriend try and pick him up. Mister ‘crankface’ doesn’t like the light, or to be handled that often. But while my boyfriend was on vacation back home, Boris and Toadster (that’ll be another entry, for a different time) are the only little guys to keep me entertained. So as per usual, I will leave you with a couple of photos that I took of Boris while he was waking up and going to his food at around 11:00PM.