Happy Sunday!

Happy Sunday, friends!

I hope you're chillaxing like we are. Had a decent brick but it's just so darned hot. Don't forget, today's the last day to take advantage of the discount over at Girlz N Gear!





The best thing about an awesome Twitter party?? Parting gifts! From now until Sunday, use the promo code "Twitterparty" to get 15% off gear at Girlz N Gear! Thanks to Girlz N Gear for sponsoring an awesome Twitter party Wednesday night! Follow Girlz N Gear on Twitter and Facebook for future fun and specials!
Have a great day!

Girlz N Gear Twitter Party TONIGHT!

UPDATE! Girlz N Gear will be revealing the slogan YOU chose during the slogan contest last week at Shrinking Jeans and here on Average Moms at tonight's Twitter party, so don't miss it!! AND did you submit your own slogan during their slogan contest? YOUR slogan will be part of a new poll! Get people to vote for your slogan during tonight's Twitter party and win a prize! Whoever gets the most votes on their slogan during the Twitter party (from 8p-9p) ET wins!

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The Twitter Party is HERE! Join me & Girlz N Gear for some great chitchat and cool gear giveaways (and some of their newest stuff, too!) It's the Twitter Party sponsored by @rungirlzngear! Not familiar with Girlz N Gear? Go check em out, they are an amazing store with cool gear designed to inspire the athlete within. And then grab a drink (or a nice big water) come back for the party tonight, and meet a lot of new like-minded friends! Have you ever been to a Twitter party before? They're a whirlwind of chitchat and fun!!

We'll have some great conversation and prizes from 8pm-9pm et and giveaways in between!

(So if you're not already following them, head on over and follow them now @rungirlzngear.) Mkay??

Leave your Twitter below to rsvp! I'm @christieo! See you there!

Headline: Average Mom With Marginal Athletic Ability Scores Sponsor!

26.2 and I are having a REMATCH.

That's right. I'm coming for you, 26.2! AGAIN! (Feel free to read about my last 26.2 experience at Disney.)

Quick Background
You may or may not have known me back then, but a little over a year ago when I was blogging at Baby Tea Leaves, I wrote this post about how come average athletes of the universe couldn't land sponsorships.

It was more of a question than an explanation. (Go ahead -- I'll give you a minute to go read it, I really do make a pretty good case there I think!)

Here's the gist of it:

Think about it, potential sponsors! Forget the Lance Armstrongs of the world! Here's an Average Mom right here, ready to target all your regular moms like me who are waiting till their husbands come home to train for something, who miss workouts they can't miss so they can wipe their children's noses and can't find a sitter, one who still has some cellulite despite all the working out she's doing and rides along in her mini-van that she tries to make cooler by putting a "triathlon" sticker on the back of it while rocking out to nursery rhymes.

I mean, what company wouldn't be wooed by that, right?

Ok so I didn't get any calls that day. Or the day after. Or the day after that. I was mostly kidding anyway.

You see, I, average 30-something minivan mom, admit to having marginal athletic ability. But if it counts (and I think it does!) I have the heart of an elite athlete. I just don't have the sponsor money and all that time to train, and well, ability, (and perhaps body) of an elite athlete. Which is all sort of key to actually being an elite athlete.

Yes, I know, I know, just having the heart won't have me crossing finish lines after having run 5 minute miles, but still. Heart is a lot! Heart is what the midpack of America has and heart is what the readers who come here have and heart is what I see on Twitter and Facebook and in the race reports I read all year long from all my friends!

If there is anything, there is heart!

Well by golly gee, someone thinks that having heart is worth sponsoring after all! Because I have landed my very first sponsor!! And they are sponsoring my rematch with 26.2, the Miami ING Marathon in Miami next January!!

Woooohooooo!

Can you believe it? I'm busting, Jerry, I'm busting!

So I want to say, thank you, Girlz N Gear!

Thank you for sponsoring this rematch with 26.2. And thank you for believing that Midpack America is worth believing in!

We might not be elite athletes, in fact, we are just one sweaty face in a sea of thousands on race day (and perhaps wearing a tutu and in that case one in only a handful of runners wearing a tutu, if that counts, and I think it does). But us midpackers represent all the athletes out there who are pushing themselves outside their comfort zones for no reason whatsoever except for being healthy and the feeling of crossing a finish line however long after we started. The ones who come in 10th through 1,010th, who walk away with the knowledge that they can do something they didn't think they could for a period of time that is really just insane.

So mid-to-back-packers of America Unite!

I promise to represent.

And guess what else? Next week, Girlz N Gear is sponsoring a Twitter party!

With prizes and everything! So make sure you stop by, next Wednesday night on Twitter from 8p-9p Eastern, hashtag #girlzngear, mkay? We're gonna talk gear and running and they've got some pretty cool prizes lined up!

While you're here, have you taken the Girlz N Gear slogan poll for their new t-shirt and entered the giveaway going on here right now???

Like the Muddy Buddy Without the Buddy

What do they call a triathlon where the bike part is canceled? I think it's an Aquathlon, (what did we do without Google? Honestly.)

So I did the Morton Plant Mease Triathlon on Sunday but because of the torrential downpouring and the lightning, they canceled the bike portion, which is a good call I say because there are 3 bridges in this race and speeding 30 miles+ down a bridge, trying to brake and make a sharp turn at the bottom on the wet roads gives me (and all of us really) visions of pileups, skidding and crashing and death.

And I don't want anyone having to say, "She died doing what she loved," about me any time soon. (I'm picturing things going downhill for me at least in my late 90's or so while getting a massage after my facial and pedicure, or perhaps while eating a donut and virtual hologram blogging or whatever we'll be doing by then. Yes, I also picture myself as a hip old lady completely up on the latest technology.)

Anyway.

So while I was a little bummed about that, (biking is my forte and usually where I catch up with the people who passed me in the swim), I was happy there was no dying on the bike for me on Sunday.

I didn't think it was actually going to rain when I got up in the morning though. I walked out of the house and it was muggy with a chance of rain. The kind of muggy that feels like the inside of an oven and that drenches you at the same time, the really gross kind of muggy. That was at 5 in the morning.

After I got to the race and set up my transition area, the deluge began. I left my stuff but took my bag and went and sat in the car for about 20 minutes until it let up and I tweeted.
So the sun started to come up and the rain started to fade and I found my friends and walked down to the beach. It looked like this thing was going to happen after all.

And while we were all walking out to the beach, the lightning was still out and about very vividly and we were like hundreds of little lightning rods on the beach.

Which I didn't like very much. Not at all.

I come from a long line of lightning-phobics. The problem has thankfully gotten a little better for me since kids because now I find myself calming them down about storms which calms me down with storms and I find that I no longer hide in the closet during the storms so as to not panic the children (like my mom did. Thanks a lot.)

The lightning started to go the other direction so they set us up to get ready to swim and we got about 5 minutes to warm up before the race and the water was 89 degrees. It was like a warm bath. I sound like I'm complaining a lot but besides the lightning, I wasn't nervous at all and was actually having a pretty good time!

And before I knew it, we were off and racing! I felt strong in the swim, I am still pretty slow (dammit!) but I don't stop at all anymore like I used to and I am actually learning to love it! I rounded the buoy, came out of the water, dashed toward transition trying to beat an age grouper, (this part seemed to take forever!) then we got our sneakers on and headed out on the run.

I had a hard time getting my breathing under control right off the bat for like the first mile, but then the lightning was upon us again and that sure lit a fire under my behind. Aside from cowering sometimes when the lightning would strike, I LOVED RUNNING IN THE RAIN! Splashing in the puddles in the off-road parts, it felt like a Muddy Buddy without the buddy part. Or maybe perhaps with a couple dozen buddies running with you. And then there was some sideways rain (more lightning and some cowering) and I thought I kicked that run's ass!

I didn't really, I did the 5k part in 30 minutes, but it felt faster, does that count?

I think the best part of this race and the last, the Dunedin Triathlon, is that no matter how the race itself is organized or moving along (despite or in spite of the weather), I AM HAVING THE BEST TIME EVER! If it weren't for these races, I'd forget why I was training in the first place, and honestly it's hard to continue that motivation month after month with nothing to look forward to in between.

It's all a big chain reaction actually; I am trying to lose a couple pounds/slash/maintain a healthy weight, which means racing because if I'm racing that means I'm training, which means in essence, exercising, which is necessary for me to lose/slash/maintain weight. It just helps that racing is fun. I don't want to forget that feeling when I train. I don't want to forget all this when I race, either, because I tend to get all "I wish I was an elite athlete"-ey on myself and really, I'm not. I'm just trying to have some fun and not be large and unhappy like I used to be.

So that's my story about Sunday's race (in short, of course. Because all my stories are short. *sarcasm*)

So. How was your weekend?

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Hey, before you go, I posted about a poll yesterday, tell me which slogan you like best for these t-shirts at Girlz N Gear (my favorite t-shirt place), mkay?? (You could win something for voting, too!) Thanks!!

Need a Little Help From My Athlete Friends: A Girlz N Gear Poll (And Giveaway!)

**This giveaway is now closed!** The winner is Donna! You should have received an email from me, please pick out a shirt and send me your choice and snail mail address at christieo at averagemomswearcapes.com**!!


My friends over at my favorite softy-feely t-shirt place, Girlz N Gear, are working on some new slogans and they need your help! They've come up with some slogans and they want your opinion! And yes there's something in it for you too: if you vote in the poll, you'll automatically be entered into a t-shirt giveaway in which the randomly selected winner will get to choose any shirt they want from Girlz N Gear. Sweet!(In motherhood, we don't call it bribery, we call it a "reward!")



I got to know Girlz N Gear really well after I obsessed over found this shirt at the expo at the Rock N Roll San Diego Half Marathon I ran last year for Team In Training. This was the best shirt ever:

And so I bought it. I've written about it a few times, including my Girlz N Gear review here.

Anyway, please vote in the above poll (we shall all appreciate your athletic expertise on slogans!) And you will be henceforth be entered into the giveaway. You can also get several other entries:
1. (Mandatory) Vote in poll and leave a comment saying you voted.
2. Extra entry: Follow Girlz N Gear on Twitter. You should follow them anyways, they're super cool!
3. Another extra entry: Like Girlz N Gear on Facebook!!!
4. Retweet the poll and giveaway for another entry!
5. For yet another entry, share the poll on Facebook to all your friends!

*You must leave a comment for each entry so that I can properly calculate your entries.

**You are not crazy, you may have also seen this poll on the Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans. If you've already entered there, THANK YOU! Your opinion and enthusiasm is awesome and invaluable! But please limit your voting to either here or there (not both) so we can count the votes correctly. (Thank you!!)

The poll will be up through 4th of July weekend and the t-shirt winner will be announced on Tuesday, July 5th.