The Confessions

Shortly after handing the no television punishment until the guilty water-in-the-soap culprit has been identified, my son Julian was the first one to confess his guilt. Julian confessed in his quiet, meek voice (not his usual voice immodulation disorder voice). For some reason, all of our children suffer from what my wife and I have determined to be temporary hearing loss. We have come to this conclusion because all of our children have at some point stood less than three feet away from us while speaking in a manner that resembles a PA system. Seriously, what is up with our children? Is their self-awareness so poor that they do not understand that they are shouting at us from across a table at dinner? But I digress.

The conversation went down like this:

Julian: "Mommy... I did it. I put the water in the soap."

Mommy: "You did? When did you do it?"

Julian: "Um..... sometime, like a couple of weeks ago."

Mommy: "No Julian, this was more recently. This must have happened in the last couple of days."

Julian: "Well, I don't know. I think... um.... maybe... it was like a couple of days ago."

Mommy: "Uh-huh."

Then it was Janina's turn to confess—followed by Luca—who literally said that he did it sometime "last year." It did not take us more than five seconds to realize what was going on. Our kids will confess to grand larceny if it means having their coveted television time back. We never found out who did it... but I have a sneaking suspicion it may have been Thing 1 or Thing 2.

Christmas morning was great fun. The bambini were up at the butt crack of dawn. This is not unusual. Wifey always makes fun of the fact that I do not know how—or do not care to take the time—to wrap Christmas presents. So, I always like to exaggerate the fact that I can not wrap a present to save my life. I get a bit campy with the high school-esque adoration. Can any men really wrap presents? I have not met one yet. Rumor has it that one lives in a forest with elves among the unicorns and dragons.

My Russian children. 

Julian deciding to have some of my vino on his birthday. (Christmas Eve)

Training: 

SWIMMING: I can not believe I am saying this, but I am still very much enjoying the swimming.  Maybe when I am about a month and a half out from my first HIM in June, I will reconsider my feelings toward swimming, but right now, it has been my favorite workout. In fact, Coach Mary gave me a long swim workout that I was not suppose to get done in an hour, but I managed to just make it in 59:58!  I can not wait to see what she throws my way this week.


RUNNING: I had a great endurance run yesterday. It was the first time I ran outside in weeks. Coach Mary had me run 45 minutes (Merry Christmas) in zone 2. The weather yesterday was a balmy 21 degrees. When I got out initially, I was a bit cold. I wore tights, my Rev3 Cedar Point Finisher shirt as my base layer and a cold weather shirt. In about five minutes, I was nice and comfortable. The cold weather helped keep my heart rate down as well.
I get to go out New Years Day and run a 7.5 miler—as fast as I can. So, New Years Race Report to follow soon. I am a bit nervous about doing a race since I have been doing nothing more than zone 2 training the last couple of weeks. Heck, who am I kidding? It will be great fun to motor.

BIKING: The thing with biking during the winter, is that I have to get on my bike in the basement and be bored to tears. Honestly, I would rather look at the black line on the bottom of a pool then sit on a trainer for an hour. So, I have been downloading movies to keep me from clock-watching. So far, I have watched the first two Harry Potter movies while on the trainer with the boys. I have another week of base work until the real joy starts. Coach Mary said not to worry about these little zone 2 rides, because she will have me "puking over my front tire in no time." Ah, it is that kind of sadistic personality that I find especially heart warming in my coach this time of year!

More soon. Train Smart!