A Smattering of Duehrings

Uncle Jeremy made it safely home from Iraq. Praise the Lord!

We have teeth falling out everywhere around here. Evan has now joined in on the fun.

Man, time goes fast. I swear I just wrote a blog on Eli turning two and now he is FOUR. He has been waiting and waiting for his birthday. They just don’t come around soon enough for him. He kept on me all day until I got a birthday cake made for him. He wanted a cake! I let him help make it and he loved it. He keeps life really exciting around here all the time.

Happy birthday little guy. We love you.

We just got a 2005 Town and Country Touring Van with only 21,000 miles on it. This baby is loaded with everything you could ever imagine. I am so excited. The kids are so excited, too. One of their favorite features is how the back seats flip back so we can tailgate.

This past Sunday was our duathlon. Sunday morning at about 2:30am I woke up sick. I spent the rest of the night in the bathroom. At first I thought it was nerves, but after about an hour I knew I was sick. Damon had been sick all day Saturday and we wonder if it could have been food poisoning from when we were camping.

We had a group of 6 girls racing together and I was supposed to drive to the duathlon with several girls and haul our bikes. I went ahead and got ready and decided to try to go even if I could only watch.

I went to the kitchen and tried to see if I could get something in my stomach. I made a piece of dry toast and took one tiny bite and had to spit it out. I was so nausious I couldn’t handle anything. Not even water. Not even my sports jelly beans. (gasp) I am living on those these days.

I drove to the race thinking I was going to have to pull over and puke the entire way. I kept praying that God would give me just a couple of hours of feeling better so that I could do this race. I was so excited about it and we had worked so hard getting ready for it.

I went ahead and set up my bike and got ready for the race still thinking there was no way I could do it. I had the chills and felt like I could barely walk. I thought maybe I could try walking the run parts and just take my time on the bike part. (here is the bike transition mess)

The race started at 7:30 and I ran but was at the very back of the pack. I ran the whole first run and didn’t feel too bad except for being extremely weak and shaky. I still had nothing in my stomach.

I got to my bike and started on the bike part feeling the same way. I was just very weak. There were alot of downhills on the race so I coasted as much as possible. My little computer thingy on my bike said I was up to 33mph at one point so know I was moving along pretty good. It is all kind of a blur now.

My dear friend Rachel finished the biking part right before me and waited on me for the last run. She ran with me and encouraged me on the whole last 3 miles. She also force fed me jelly beans and water. Ok, she didn’t force feed me but she continued offering them to me the entire run. I know I couldn’t have run that last leg without her there. I was freezing and had the goosebumps the whole time. I told her that if I passed out I wanted her to drag me across the finish line or carry me or whatever it would take, but I wanted my finishers medal!! She agreed that she would do that for me. When I finished I think I had an adrenalin rush or something because I felt pretty decent. Maybe those 5 beans I ate finally kicked in and gave me a sugar rush or something.

We finished in 1 hour and 41 minutes. When I got home I had a fever of 101. I crawled in bed and slept for the next 24 hours.

This was such a fun duathlon (yeah, I can say that now that I feel good). IT is MUCH more fun than the Prairie Punisher we did last year. There are actually lines of people cheering you on and it is a much more exciting route. I want to do the triathlon next year. It goes on at the same time as the duathon and looks exciting to me. The swimming is in the lake and the running and biking go around the lake. I loved watching all the swimmers while I was running. I was glad I didn’t have to put on a swim suit in the 58 degree weather.

I got my medal!

Recognize the bike, Tim? It is awesome. I can fly on it. I love it.

After the race doing our “Completer not Competer chant”