I'm a Weiner!

Haha, that’s what Lucas has been calling me ever since my triumphant return to Moss Park, for the WildMan Triathlon. You may recall — my last time at the venue, I veered slightly (1 mile) off course, clocked a not-so-good time, and freaked myself out about ever competing in triathlon again.

No more.

But you’ll have to wait to hear about my triathlon weekend, for a few bits and bites. Mostly because I am SO proud of my newly acquired yumminess! (I currently have wheatberries simmered and ready for eating, and a peach “tart” in the oven — FlatOut wrap, fresh peaches, honey and cinnamon)

(P.S. I have made a MAJOR camera upgrade, thanks to my dear husband! All of these pictures except the sushi cameraphone pics and older triathlon pics were taken on a brand new, stunning and sparkly Canon PowerShot SD770IS and uploaded wirelessly with an Eye-Fi card.)

Last Friday at about 2pm, I was on the verge of a caffeine breakdown. I’d had three very strong cups of coffee by 10am, all filled with about 3T of Splenda — and I couldn’t remember if the coffee had even been any good. I realized I had completely lost the joy of brewing, sipping and savoring coffee, and had started to treat it like a drug … pour it in, wait for the effects, repeat. That’s no good!

I had seen several bloggers go through Crap Free weeks, in which they cut out a mixture of caffeine, artificial sweeteners, sugar, processed foods, extra sodium … the list goes on and on. I decided I would go cold turkey on caffeine, sugar and artificial sweeteners, as well as high fructose corn syrup and other scary sounding ingredients.

MUCH harder than I though … TOTALLY worth the pain.

I said pain, and I meant it! On Saturday, I had the worst headache of my life by about 2pm — debilitating, want to gouge my eyes out, fall asleep on the couch and sleep until the next morning pain. I thought it was a rare migraine, but since the headache continued through Sunday and Monday, I finally figure out (through my pals on Twitter) that the caffeine was probably the cause. Once I knew what it was, I was okay to grit my way through it, and by Wednesday night I was feeling better.

The artificial sweeteners were also more difficult — no coffee meant herbal tea … I hate herbal tea unless it has loads of sweet stuff. Hmmm.

My co-worker’s wife swears by Yogi tea and Stevia (the natural sugar substitute) and I decided to give it a go. Thank goodness I did — the tea was amazing, and I am now a Stevia freak. The flavored liquid forms taste great, and are much better for you than anything artificial.

I could go on and on … the summary of the story is, I now feel liberated from caffeine and artificial sweeteners. I will definitely go back to drinking coffee, but I will be more mindful of how much I’m having, and whether I’m drinking it because I enjoy it, or I see it as a means to an end.

Anyway, I decided to get my own Stevia — and since I really liked the Sweet Leaf brand, I was on a mission to find it in my area. Only one store carried it, but luckily, it’s not far from home.

So I stocked up on other goodies while I was there.

I also got (unpictured) two untried types of Clif bars: Iced Gingerbread and Apricot, as well as a lavender blueberry bar for Lucas.

Also pictured are the AMAZING birthday gifts that I received in the mail today — a card and AWESOME running socks from my friend Carolyn, who rocked the Disney half marathon in January and swears by these. As you know, I’m signed up to compete with her (gulp) in 2010, so these are awesome.

And Jackie got me this book on grammar that not only has the cutest panda on the front, it came on the perfect day — I had just told Jackie that I was listening to the Grammar Girl podcast, working on some copy editing for Growing Bolder. And she whipped this out!

I also got my Bondi bands in the mail which is amazing because I only ordered them on Thursday … look at the one on top! So perfect for me.

So, that brings me to the Triathlon. I had originally planned on competing in Sunday’s Olympic distance event, but realized that I wasn’t quite ready. I signed up for Saturday instead, and unfortunately, Lucas had already signed up for his fantasy baseball draft on that day. So I drove down to Moss Park by myself, set up my stuff, and got ready to compete.

Even though it wasn’t my first triathlon, I was really nervous! Would I be able to finish the run? What if I got a flat on the bike? What if I came in last!

Well, guess what … I didn’t come in last. I came in first for my age group and set a PR (personal record) for the tri!

When they posted the results, I didn’t believe it … and even after I looked at them twice, I finally took a picture of the list just to make sure. And I won a nice shiny plaque for my efforts.

And the perfect end to an amazing day like that? Sushi, sushi and more sushi.

More soon — the boys and I are sleepy and need to go to bed.