Wallace Family

These first few pictures are just a small sampling of what we did in Idaho...









Michelle and I got back from our week-long trip in Idaho on Tuesday. This was the first time we had taken a trip out there in the summer. Michelle was very anxious for me to experience Idaho in the summer, and now I understand why. In addition to spending amazing quality time with Michelle's family (my family too!), we did so many amazing things in the beautiful outdoors of Idaho. We went whitewater rafting (an experience I will never forget) and went camping for a couple days. This vacation deserves its own thorough blog post, so stay tuned for that -- this post is about the Ironman training I did in Idaho. The elevation in Idaho and especially where Michelle lives is a little higher than here in D.C; it is a little over 3,000 ft. above sea level. This is not a big deal, but could have made things just a tiny bit more challenging.




While camping, I decided to go for a swim in the lake. This worked well because it would be good practice for the 'open water' swimming portions of Triathlons, as opposed to swimming laps in a pool. Swimming in open water and in a lap pool are not entirely different, but swimming in open water does offer unique challenges. For starters, you don't have lanes and underwater tiles guiding you in perfectly straight lines, you usually can't see underwater even with goggles, and it will most likely be colder. So I swam about a mile in the lake near where we were camping. It was 70 degrees, which doesn't sound too cold, but it is cold enough to make things tough. If it were a race I would have worn a wetsuit. While swimming in the lake I could see the seaweed reaching up at me and apparently there were fish in the lake; these two things sort of distracted me and combined with the cold water made it tougher than swimming laps in a pool. This was good practice though for any Triathlon races I do in the future.



I also got to go on a really awesome run when we were back at Michelle's family's house. There was a trail that went around some neighborhoods, the freeway, and a golf course. I went about 7.5 miles. Even though it was hot, the air is crisp and dry, the opposite of the humidity out here in D.C. right now. It was a relatively long run, but I had such a great time running on a partially paved/partially unpaved trail with the beautiful desert all around me. It felt great. Hopefully I can train more somewhere like this sometime.


We got back from Idaho on Tuesday, and I was very anxious to go on a long bike ride. I decided to go for a 100 mile bike ride on Wednesday. This was my ninth century bike ride. I hadn't been biking for a week, and I was anxious to see if I could better than the last century where the heat and humidity was almost too much. I tried to do everything right in terms of nutrition. I tried to carboload and rest the day before, I ate a really good breakfast, and I consumed lots of electrolytes and fluids on the ride. I was feeling great for about 50 miles, but then the relentless heat and humidity just got to me. It was nothing like how bad of shape I was in on the 112 miler before I went Idaho, but the heat and humidity out here is just stifling right now. It was 90 degrees, and I don't think I will do another long ride until it is at least 10 degrees cooler than that. At about the 90 mile point, when I was really feeling the heat, I stopped at a water fountain that thankfully had a faucet on the side and bowl on the ground (for people walking their dogs I assume). I knelt down next to the faucet and basically took a bath in the water. It felt so good and really rejuvenated me. I was able to make it home much easier after that. Moral of the story is, you have to find a way to beat the heat. I know that in marathons people wear a hat so they can grab ice at the help stations and put it under their hat on top of their head. Fortunately things should be much cooler in September in Maryland when I do my first Ultra distance (Ironman distance) Triathlon.

The hardest part of meal planning for me is figuring out what to cook, and then hoping we actually have the right ingredients to make it. I have never been good at planning meals ahead of time even though I know it should make things easier. I've tried writing out menus for a week or a month on paper, or just keeping a list of meal ideas, but I haven't been good about making sure I have the ingredients ahead of time. Another problem has been that when I see what I planned for the day a week previously, it doesn't sound good anymore and I don't feel like making it.

So...I think I may have found a solution! I found this online through pinterest and wanted one right away!


It is a magnetic menu calendar with meal ideas on cute, magnetic strips of paper. There are several things I love about this: 1) The meal ideas are all right there in front of me and I don't have to go searching through recipes to decide what to put on the menu for the week - I can just glance at my board and see what pops out. 2) The meal ideas are on magnetic strips and easy to move around - if I don't feel like making something that is on the menu for that day, I can easily just switch it with another day - no erasing, no re-writing, just quick and easy. 3) Chad volunteered to use it to plan the meals for August - yeah! 4) It's cute!

I invited some of my good friends to do this project with me. We went to Wal-Mart and bought magnetic strips for $2 and the magnetic, whietboard calendars for $10 (we were going to make our own with sheet metal - this was much easier). We already had the paper to make it cute and we used scotch tape to "laminate" the meal ideas. After brainstorming meal ideas (and going through recipes and cookbooks - hopefully saving me from doing that much in the future), printing, cutting, laminating, cutting again, and attaching magnets, here is my first finished meal calendar. I made this one for my mom who is the one who has given me almost all the meal ideas I have and taught me how to make them - I hope I can cook like her some day!


Then I made this one for our house. I decided to spray paint the frame so it matched our kitchen and front room.

I haven't started using this yet because we just got back from a trip to Idaho and now I'm waiting for Chad to plan the August menu, which is just a few days away. Hopefully this will really help me to plan ahead and make better meals. We'll see!

Two days ago I went on my eighth century bike ride. When I say 'century bike ride' I am referring to any bike ride 100 miles or longer. In the case of the ride I did two days ago, I biked 113 miles. This was by far, hands-down, the most difficult bike ride I have ever done; I will actually go one step further and say that it was the most physically challenging and grueling thing I have ever done. I believe that I was suffering from heat stroke or possibly heat exhaustion and was not far from being in very serious medical trouble. The heat and humidity were unlike anything I had ever faced. I also encountered severe cramping in both legs. I experimented with a lot of different things while still on my bike that helped them go away and astonishingly I only had to stop once when the pain was unbearable. What made this ride so much more difficult than anything I have ever done was a combination of several factors, and I learned several extremely valuable lessons from these events.

First off, I have to find a way to maintain nutrition on these long hauls. My GPS watch (which monitors distance, time, speed, my weight, the weight of my bike, elevation change, etc.) said I burned 7,000 calories. The body burns way more calories in the heat though to keep your body cool so I think I may have easily actually burned closer to 10,000 calories. I have started to research the matter but must learn more how to keep my body fueled. I must also take electrolyte replenishing much more seriously -- water is not enough on these long hauls. I don't think I was ever dehydrated, but had lost too many electrolytes. I believe that if I drink as much Gatorade as I do water and eat more potassium (bananas) it will be a step in the right direction to making sure this never happens again.

When I got home I sprawled out on the floor and Michelle massaged my legs and gave me ice and wet wash cloths to help cool me down. I had a really bad headache the rest of the day no matter what I ate, drank, did, or took to alleviate the pain. Luckily a good night's rest was all I needed to be back feeling well, after a day of rest and massive nutritional re-uptake.

Above all else, I learned many valuable lessons about how seriously to treat the threats of heat exhaustion, dehydration, and lack of proper caloric intake and nutrition on these ultra long distance workouts as I am preparing for my first Ironman distance Traithlon in just over two months.

On Friday night Chad and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2) with our good friends Mike and Chelsea. Since it was opening day, we thought it would be fun to dress up as characters in the movie. We considered several different characters - good and evil, and finally decided on the characters we could create with stuff from home.

I decided to be Bellatrix Lastrange. She is one of Volde****'s (don't say it!) side kicks, also known as a death eater. All of the death eaters have a special mark/tatoo which looks like a snake. Chad used eyeliner to draw one on my arm for me. I think he did a pretty good job! I put on all black clothes, black boots, and scary make-up. Then I scrunched my hair, ratted it a ton, and tied knots in the underlayers to make it even bigger and wilder, and of course found a wand (actually, it chose me).















Above on the left is a picture of the death eater tattoo. On the right is the "tatoo" Chad drew.





















Above on the left is Bellatrix from the movie, on the right is my creation.














Pretty scary looking I think!


Chad decided to be Mad Eye Moody, who was one of the good guys - a teacher at Hogwarts and an important member of The Order of the Phoenix (group who fought to destroy the death eaters). Yeah, things got a little tense around here Friday night! For Chad's costume I took apart some old swimming goggles, painted an eye on one side, and tied it around Chad's head with some brown ribbon. Chad wore his huge black trench coat from his brother and styled his hear like Mad-Eye Moody's to complete the costume. And of course, a wand chose him as well.


















Above on the left is Mad Eye Moody from the movie. On the right is Chad's Version.


















I wouldn't want to get in a fight with him!

Michelle and I spent a lovely day in a part of the nation's capital that we didn't know too well, the SouthEast quadrant of D.C. Washington, D.C. is divided into four parts and this is probably the one that we have visited the least. In our quest to get to know our nation's capital and see all the sites, we made a list of places to visit in this part of D.C. This is what we saw:








Frederick Douglas was an amazing, inspiring man. We first visited the visitor's center and then got to go on a tour of his house here in Washington, D.C. He owned a huge, beautiful house. The house was full of mostly original artifacts and furniture. My favorite piece of furniture was the coat rack made of some animal's horns.









I will need to to double-check to be 100% certain, but I believe that after our visit to this museum we have now been to all of the Smithsonian Museums in D.C. (and research facilities if you include the national zoo). This was a very small museum, dedicated to the history of the Anacostia community and the African influence there. This museum was really small and it would be hard to recommend making a trip out to that area just to see this museum (unless you're on a quest to see and do everything in D.C. like us); the only reason I would mention this is because I am really glad they are going to be making a much larger museum on the National Mall dedicated to African American history. I think this museum will do more justice to the important things we saw and learned about at the Anacostia museum.







Fort Dupont was a Civil War fort, but today nothing of that fort is still there. Instead, it is just a huge beautiful park. This is yet another example of how D.C. has gorgeous parks and forests nestled into what is otherwise a completely urban setting (like Rock Creek Park). Michelle and I went on a short walk on one of the trails at Fort Dupont Park. Even though we didn't do too much here, we are glad we went because it is definitely a good place to know about if you want to go on a nature hike, have a picnic, barbecue, or play sports.

So a while back I wrote a post saying that my summer job was to do a lot of swimming, biking, and running. So how is that going for me, you might ask. Let me give you an update of what I've been up to in terms of my Ironman Triathlon training over the past one month. I have:

Swam 14,600 meters (9.1 miles)

Biked 677 miles

Run 30 miles

In addition to this I have been peppering in some good strength training (lifting weights).

Michelle and I went on a really fun bike ride today. We started out on a trail near where we live called Four Mile Run. This eventually runs into Mount Vernon Trail, which is a gorgeous trail to ride on because it runs parallel to the Potomac River and you can see all of D.C.'s well known monuments on the other side of the river as you are riding along. We stopped at a monument we had never been to before called the Navy and Marine Memorial. It was a really nice monument, dedicated to all the men and women in the Navy and Marines that have perished in the ocean or at sea.

We entered D.C. by crossing the Key Bridge. Our plan was to get a cupcake at Georgetown Cupcake, but apparently it is the biggest tourist attraction around (the line went out the door and up the block!). We kept moving and started to make our way bag home but this time we went home via Rock Creek Park. In other words, we were on the other side of the Potomac River and got to ride past the Watergate buildings, the Kennedy Center, and some of the amazing monuments in D.C.

All in all it was a really good bike ride. I am really proud of Michelle for how much biking she is doing. I estimate that we biked about 15 miles. The sun and heat were really strong today too, so it made the bike ride a little bit tougher, but Michelle stuck with it and we had a lot of fun!

The following are pictures of our bike ride (in no particular order), and there is a video at the bottom as well: