Dave and Cathy's Family Blog

May Highlights:

• Lilah destroys her personal best at season end championships – girls team takes first place in league
• I compete in my first Half Ironman triathlon in Sonoma
• Luke’s volleyball team wins second place to end season
• We celebrate cousin Trevor’s graduation from USC and birthday
• Lilah gets honored for her Spanish skills at her school’s second Academy Award ceremony
• My Tia Pamela and Tio Raul come to visit
• Cathy achieves certification in Les Mills Body Combat – her hardest cert yet

Athletic Pursuits – All in the Family

Everyone in the household accomplished something big athletically this month: Lilah shattered her personal best in the 100-yard breast stroke with a time of 1:13.16 (3.8 seconds faster than her previous record), I completed my first Half Ironman in Sonoma, CA, Luke’s team scored a second place finish in volleyball, and, after her second attempt, Cat succeeded in getting her Les Mills Body Combat certification. 

Swimming Year End Championships
Lilah has worked hard at her swimming all season. Instead of going on a spring break snow trip with us, she opted to stay in town and continue her practice routine (I think she said she swam 14 miles over the “break”). At an earlier championship event, she mentioned how most of the girls wore these special speed suits in competition. She added that it’s crazy how some of those suits cost 3-4 hundred dollars. She didn’t say she wanted one, but I tucked that anecdote away and did some research. End result, we scored a deal and bought Lilah her own speed suit. Apparently, these suits are notoriously hard to put on and typically require the assistance of teammates. Luckily, she was able to tug, pull and stretch the suit on without ripping it. However, she did get some bloody fingers in the process. She wasn’t convinced the suit would help her at her year end championships (I would learn this from her friends later), and she reminded me that she had not asked for this gift from us. I told her I knew that and still wished her luck.

As she prepared to get on the blocks for her event, I could tell she was a little nervous, but still focused on the task at hand. All signs of nerves disappeared once the race started. The first length of the pool concluded with the top four girls being within striking distance of each other. Lilah was in this top for group and swam her best 100 ever, finishing in 1:13.16 which was 3.8 faster than anything she had ever done before. Because of the way the scoreboard was set up she could not tell if she had swam her fastest. Only when her friend yelled out her time to her did she let out a big “yeah!” Afterwards all her teammates surrounded her and hugged her over and over again. Lilah came in 4th, but the way her smile beamed, you’d think she had finished in 1st place. Close enough though, all 4 competitors were separated by less than 3.5 seconds and Lilah just missed a CIF consideration time by about 1.5 seconds. 

Half Ironman Survival Fest
Never have i been so ready for an event to be over. Biologically speaking, things get a little more complicated in a 5+ hour event. At least they do for me. My two big culprits were an overactive bladder and cramps. Things began well as I had a comfortable swim. Not so comfortable was the quarter mile boat ramp up a steep ascent. Part of the gravel path was carpeted, but over half wasn’t leading to some pretty ginger-footed walking and a long transition that included bladder drainage number one. Struggled a bit to put on all the layers to survive the 43 degree morning air temps, but got on my bike and was on my way. The pedal through wine country was scenic but windy and I had to perform another bladder relief pit stop at mile 31. I swear I spent 40% of the ride feeling like i had to pee which made getting into the aero position uncomfortable — this is the oversharing part i warned you about. I felt okay endurance-wise through most of the ride, but maybe not as okay as I thought because the last 6 miles into town felt like it took forever.

Once I finished the ride, I hit pit stop number three and took off on my run. Within the first mile of the run, my right quad started to cramp but I managed to walk it off and eventually get into a good groove. Even ran with three other dudes who were also doing this distance for the first time. We were all doing great till we hit the 7 mile mark or so – that’s when each of us started succumbing to cramps and we took turns passing each other. Early on, we had a nice 8:30 min mile pace, but the cramps got bad in the last 3 miles we were probably closer to 11 min miles by the end. The last two miles I suffered big time. Only the cheering crowd kept me moving as i passed a guy who was walking on my way to the finish chute where i experienced the ultimate sense of relief. The good: the cheering from the crowd, seeing my teammates finish, hugging my dad, and knowing I had at last completed this f’ing event in just a little over 6 hours. 

Volleyball Championships
I finally got a chance to see one of Luke’s volleyball games. They are typically at 3:30 in the afternoon and now that work is a lot farther away I have to selective about which games I see. This year, it was just one game – the championship. Even though the boys got killed, it was still cool to see Luke out there blocking shots and getting a great save on a dig. Luke reminded me that the game before this one, the playoff game, was a super tight, suspenseful affair. That is the one I should have seen, but nonetheless, I was happy to see him out there competing and celebrating the team’s second place trophy. The league only had four teams, but hey, this was only the first year Luke’s team had boy’s volleyball so it was a learning experience for them all. Luke ended up liking the experience so much that he signed up for freshman volleyball in the upcoming school year. We look forward to hopefully seeing more of his games.

Cathy Accomplishes Her Toughest Feat to Date
Cathy described her trials and tribulations in the following Facebook post (proud of her):
THE most challenging thing I’ve done. ?? Talk about going outside your comfort zone. BodyCombat took me there. I got dropped into the twilight zone when I got a “no pass” after my first video submission, but I knew it wasn’t my best and looked forward to the feedback. Always look forward to feedback. ??It’s been a tiring, stressful, soul-searching 3 months since Initial Training on February 11. But so worth it!! This journey rekindled confidence in myself. As a Les Mills instructor of 5 years (CXWorx, BodyPump and Grit) this one went beyond the physical challenge. This one pushed me mentally when I really doubted why I began down this path. But I wasn’t about to give up. Mental “grit” (or my stubbornness ?) to the rescue! ?Thanks to Trainer Lynn for giving me the foundation to grow on, heartfelt and caring as she shared her wisdom and love for our Tr1be; and a punch in the arm to Trainer Will for initially sparking my inspiration to try BodyCombat at Super Q’s and for the continuous encouragement. ????Apologies to everyone in my immediate life-hemisphere who’s had to deal with me these past few months. I know I’m a handful ? but I truly thank each of you for being by my side, cheering me on.

Another Cousin Reunion

It seems like it wasn’t long ago that I was writing about a special young man, the kids’ cousin Trevor, going off to attend USC. One of the nice things about keeping a blog is that you can quickly go back and find out when that event happened. In Trevor’s case, it was three years ago. It takes most kids at least 4 years to graduate from college, and, if you take the roundabout way like I did, it takes a tad longer than that ;). For Trevor, 3 years is all it took to become a Trojan graduate. Up next, the Chicago School of Law or possibly Stanford as he is on the waiting list for the graduate program there. The side benefit of Trevor’s major accomplishment is that it gave most of the cousins a chance to get together again and catch up, as his grandparents took the opportunity to host a wonderful party at their country club in Trevor’s honor. We also made it a 2fer, by celebrating his birthday too. Way to go Trevor — we are all so proud of you!  

My Tia Pamela Comes Back to California After 43 Years

The last time my Tia Pamela was in California she was a 17-year old teenager and I was around three. Tia Pamela is the only child conceived from the union of my grandmother and step grandfather, who each had two and three kids respectively before they married each other. In that way, she is unique, as she is the only sibling who is blood-related to the other five brothers and sisters. It was at my Tia’s house that I would stay after school when I went to school in Chile, and over the years we’ve remained close. 

This year, my Tio Raul surprised her with a trip to California so that she could sight see — visiting San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles — and, of course, spend some quality time with us. We took advantage of that time to host a family dinner and also invite both my Tia and Tio to Lilah’s Academy Awards ceremony where she was presented with an award for her achievements in her Spanish language class. This meant that Lilah a contingent of 7 people at her ceremony cheering her on.

Even though Lilah isn’t a fluid Spanish speaker she was able to understand some of the things my aunt said to her and say “gracias” to her when she called her “linda.” I think Lilah was genuinely touched by the love she felt from all of us that night. One moment that stood out was when I spotted her approaching us in her car as we were leaving the venue. That’s when I got the attention of the rest of our group and pointed out Lilah in the car — all seven us then proceeded to wave to her. Lilah’s face lit up when she saw us and she enthusiastically waved back before driving off to have dinner with her friends. It was a sweet moment for sure. For this, and for so much more we were so thankful to have had this special time with you Tia and Tio — we love you so much! 

That’s all for now. More next month