"And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years"

Well 2012 has been no less insane than 2011. Lets see where to begin:

Oh right... we moved into our new house! I totally and completely love it. My favorite room? Our bedroom. We got all new beautiful furniture, and we finally have a big enough closet to hide keep all our clothes. It has become a total room of relaxation and sleep. The rest of our house is pretty awesome too. We finally have enough room for entertaining which is exciting.

Then, after being in our new house for 3 weeks, we decided to take the plunge and get a dog! We've wanted one for the last 4 1/2 years but just never had the space and plus we were renting. We started at the humane society and were thinking about adopting a huge dog named wally. he was adorable, a great puranese mixed with a poodle. The problem was that he had some issues; he was really nervous around new people and situations. And although has never biten before, when dogs are nervous you never really know what they'll do and he's so big he could really do some damage. After thinking about it for some time and feeling really guilty we decided wally probably wasn't the best fit for us since we like to have people over and go on random adventures. Then we found Rudy. A 4 month old labradoodle. We found him online and by friday we were driving 3 hours to lethbridge to pick him up. We lucked out he is a really good puppy. Really smart, adorable, and loves to cuddle. Since we work all day in Calgary, Rudy has to go in his kennel but we have someone come every day to let him out for a play and potty mid day. It has definitely been an adjustment having a dog, I mean we're pretty spotaneous and get up and go so we've had to adjust a little but we love him to pieces.

Then I got a promotion at work. There was a position that opened up and I didn't even think about applying for it since there was alot more senior people above me for the job. The job posting dropped off the system, and I knew some people at my work had applied for the job. Then a week later i was called into my boss' office and they offered me the job. I was in shock, but definitely flattered that they thought that much of me. I wasn't supposed to start the new job until March 5th and I was supposed to partner with the person who was already in the job. But, he up and quit last thursday. So i've been thrown into this job without any training and just winging it. Needless to say it's been pretty stressful. On the plus side I now have an office with a window! moving up in the world.
I am also going to be working part time for Murray's new business. He's just started up a spraying business and I will be doing all his paperwork for him. I'm excited for that too. Bring in a little extra cash, and help me diversify my resume from just banking.

On the training front, Ben is planning on doing the Sinister 7 (a 150 km run through the mountains) cause he is crazy, I on the other hand was planning on doing maybe a half ironman or marathon. But, I have decided that I need a break. My body really took a beating last year training for the Ironman, and I think I am just burnt out. I also need to get my hips/knees/feet/back in order. So I signed up for the 5 peaks race series which is 5 trail races throughout the summer from 10 k to the last one being a half marathon. I thought it would just be a fun way to stay active but not go to crazy. It has been kind of nice not training. Running without my watch to seeing if i'm on pace, relaxing if I just don't feel like going to the gym, ahhhh :). I'm also excited to do alot more camping/backpacking this year. We love it, but with training last year we didn't have any time. So Ben's race is the first weekend in July and then we'll be free to do what ever after.

We're also headed back to Ontario may! I have never met ben's father or his grandma (his only remaining grandparent) so I'm pretty excited to meet them. We're also excited to meet out little nephews Owen and Elliot. It will be a quick trip and we have alot of family to cram into the 5 days that we're there but it will be fun. I have made ben promise to take me to niagra falls since I have never seen it.

We're also planning a 10 day road trip for our aniversary in September. We have always wanted to drive down the oregon coast. And since a beach vacation isn't really in the budget this year, we're going to go exploring. We're hoping we make it all the way to California (and maybe I can convince ben to go to disney land :)). It's just going to be us, our car, and our tent for 10 days. It'll be fun. If you have any must see places along the way definitely let us know!

Ben and I keep laughing about how 1 year ago we never would have thought we would be at this moment. I mean we weren't even engaged yet! Like the quote above we like to cram a whole lot of living into our years.

Well that's all for now. I promise I will try and write at least once a week.

2011... the year of progress

I think it will be hard to top our 2011. Seriously, it has been a year of big changes. If someone were to tell me last new years eve how awesome this coming year would be I probably would have put in the effort and stayed up until midnight to ring it in; instead of passing out with Ben at 10:30 pm.

In fact, we have done 9 life changing things this year starting with getting engaged in March, then moving back to Calgary in June and Ben starting a new career, then competing in and finishing the Ironman in August, followed by our amazing wedding and honeymoon in September, the day after getting back from our honeymoon I started a new career… and just because we didn’t think that was enough for the year we bought a house, and I got my mutual fund license. WOW. It has been a good one. I have no idea how 2012 plans on topping this past year, but it is starting big with us moving on January 12th! woot!

Alright, I know I have no been the best blogger as of late, however I do have an excuse: Life has been busy! I promise I will get back to talk about my wedding, which was amazingly perfect by the way, but I just wanted to take a minute and update my life.

The big news.. We bought a house! Yep. We sure did! It happened pretty quickly. We had been planning on purchasing a house in June 2012 some time. However, we just got really excited and started looking at houses online. We knew we wanted to live in Cochrane (10 minutes outside Calgary) where we can get the small town living as well as the big city jobs. It’s also a perk that my mom lives there. So on our way out to my mom’s cabin for thanks giving we decided to stop and look at some listings. At this point we were thinking a townhouse or something of the sort. Well, we didn’t really like what we saw and headed back on to the highway. Only to find ourselves veering off the highway into a new development with brand new houses. We wandered into a show home, where this totally awesome sales guy got talking to us. We found out we could in fact buy a house sooner than June! Every excuse we came up with he could fix. "Oure lease isn't up until June".... "we'll pay for the lease break penalty;" "We don't have the whole down payment until December".... "you can pay half now, and we can push the move in date until January and pay the other half then." Plus they were in the last stage of this development and wanted to get rid of these houses so they were taking money off the purchase price, and throwing all sorts of perks our way. So we looked at a few places, and found the PERFECT place. Like seriously perfect. We didn’t want to jump into anything, so on our way back from my moms cabin we spent the day looking at more places but our minds kept going back to one in particular. And BAM not even a week later we were in the process of being approved for a mortgage and buying a house! We move January 12th! I can hardly believe it. So after christmas and new years we'll be packing up and moving.. again! for the 3rd time in 2 years! But this time.. for good!

So now we’ve been excitedly furniture shopping for our new place and needless to say Ben is very excited for our new 51 inch plasma TV that we got for half price; and my mother in law should be very excited for the new bed that we bought for the spare room; so that when they come to visit they don’t have to sleep on an inflatable in the living room. The universe just seems to be liking us these days.

Actually, my brother was so excited about the idea of buying a new house, he and his girlfriend just bought a new house for their little family. It’s being built and they’ll be moving in the summer! All these exciting changes on the horizon for our family.

The week of the wedding..

Ok, life has been busy the last couple of weeks while I have gotten used to being back at work, and hanging out with friends and family (who we have neglected for the most part of the year while we trained). Anyways, back to the long awaited post... the wedding!... well almost, the week of the wedding at least.

Well, if i can say one thing about our wedding, the planning process was anything but smooth. Pretty much anything that could have gone wrong through out the planning process went wrong, however, our wedding turned out amazing... incredible... I wish I could go back a month (and 2 days) and do it all over again!

So anyways, the tuesday before the wedding I was exhausted, sore, and realized that maybe everyone the last few months was right; maybe I am crazy getting married 6 days after doing the ironman. I could barely think about moving, let alone think about all the wedding stuff. My brain was mush, my legs were sore, and as for tuesday I laid on the couch for the most part of the day. It was the only day that week that I knew I wouldn't have to do anything, so i savored it. Well that is until my brother called to babysit... Of course I babysat my nephew in a pinch when my brother was pressed for a sitter (i love chilling with that little dude), but I wasn't too impressed with my newphew when all he wanted to do was walk, and walk, and then when we were a mile from home didn't want to walk anymore and I got to carry his 30 lb self. But I think in the end that was the best thing for me, my legs were feeling much better by wednesday.

On wednesday, Ben's brother, the best man arrived from London Ontario, along with my father's family from London ontario as well. And from then on in it was all about the wedding. I was supposed to go out with ben and his brother on wednesday night but I was tired and still not feeling 100% so they went out and I enjoyed a relaxing night at home.

On thursday, ben, his brother, my brother, and my cousin went out for a "bachelor day." Yes aparently they don't just do bachelor party's anymore, but entire days.. and they went golfing in Kananaskis. Since they were out, me and my sister decided to have a bachelorette day which included mani and pedi's, lunch, quick last minute errands, and then a quick nap at my house before another bridesmaid came over, ben and his beother came home and we started getting ready for our joint bachelor/bachelorette party . We had a great night. We went to a piano bar which is only a few blocks away, and it was sooo fun. The best part was it was pretty much just our family that was there, and the place was dead except for 3 other bachelorette party's. I loved that my 80 year old oma was the last one on the dance floor, and we partied until they turned the lights on and kicked us out.

On friday morning, we packed up all the stuff we needed, picked up my 2 bridesmaids and drove to fernie..Yep your math is correct; all 5 of us packed in to our little mazda 3 for 3 hours, with hangovers. We got to the lodge in the early afternoon, and started unpacking. However, there were some curveballs that included staind table cloths, no toilet paper or soap in the bathrooms,and lack of staff. I'm not sure if you remember, but a month before our wedding the owner of the lodge went out of business, so the new owner stepped up but had only taken possesion of the lodge 2 days before our wedding. Stuff was missing, I was stressed, overwhelmed, and just not a very happy camper. But, the lodge was beautiful, nothing could deny that. We headed over to my mother in law's house in fernie for the rehesal dinner and we had a great time. I had the honour of meeting a bunch of ben's aunt's and uncles who I had never met before, and my family got to meet ben's family. It was a great night.

After the "rehersal dinner," I have it in qutotation marks since we didn't actually do a wedding rehersal, we headed back to the lodge. The people who were staying at the lodge stayed up having some drinks, excitedly talking about the day to come. Nerves got the best of me, and I wound up falling asleep in my mom's room around 12. The last night before I would become Mrs Jen Rendle.

Anyways, that's a long enough post for tonight. I promise there won't be such a long delay before I finish posting about the wedding and the honeymoon.

Ironman Canada: Where pain meets glory

We left for Penticton on Thursday evening, after ben got off work. The plan was to drive to Revelstoke, camp, and then continue to Penticton on friday morning. Well we got to revelstoke by 8pm and since we were only 3 hours away we decided to keep pushing through to penticton. We were planning on camping all weekend, and when we got to a town just before penticton we found a campground. Exhausted and grumpy we pitched the tent and passed out for the night. Only to have a terrible sleep; we were right beside a river which was really loud, the other campers were loud, and the street lights were on all night. SO friday morning came and I was running on little sleep, and me on little sleep is bad news. Luckily we have relatives who have a cabin nearby, so after talking to them and arranging a room we packed up our stuff and headed to their cabin. Which was a blessing. We had a comfortable bed right on the lake front for the whole weekend, it was awesome. On Friday morning we headed in to penticton get our race packages. I was pretty nervous up to that point, but after we picked up the race packages I was very nervous. Just being around all the people talking about other races and what not really overwhelmed me. So we tried to limit our time in Penticton. We went back to my relatives house and just relaxed the rest of the day. On Saturday we had to get everything organized for our transistion bags, and get everything checked in at the race area. We took one last look at our stuff, made sure everything was there and left for a good pasta dinner with my mom in Kelowna, and a good night's sleep before the race.

RACE MORNING! We got up at 4:30 am, had a bagel and some coffee, and by 5:15 we were headed to the race area. It was awesome, ben and I got to be together all morning right up until the gun went off. We double checked our gear, sunscreened up, gave eachother a hug and kiss, and we were off. I was surprisingly calm on race morning. There was one moment of panic as we were standing in the water before the race, when i started to think about how lone I was going to be out here for, but I pushed the thought aside. All I could focus on was the next ten minutes. Making it to the next bouy while swimming and the next aid station during the run and swim. The concept of time just seems to disappear.

SWIM:

THe swim was crazy, seroiusly crazy. You get elbowed, kicked, pushed down, cut off.. it like a washing machine. My main goal was to stay calm, keep my heart rate under control, find any open space I could, and get out of the water as quickly as I could. The swim course is an out and back, and on the way back I managed to find some open space which was awesome! I was definitely so happy to get out of the water. I made it in 1 hour and 27 minutes, and I was pretty much on target for 13-14 hours.

Bike:

The bike, well I'm not really sure how to describe the immense ups and downs that I experienced during those 180 kms. The first 2 hours to oosoyos I was feeling great. It's relatively flat, and I was making really good time. Then you hit Rogers Pass... the 15 km hill. Even there I wasn't feeling to bad, I kept my heart rate under control, passed alot of people, and even managed to have a conversation with a fellow jennifer on our way up. What got me was the rollers after the summit of rogers pass. They say this is the hardest ironman course, and I understand why, after the pass tehre are another 10 mini hills. All I could think about was getting to kilometer 120 where our special needs bags were and I had coke and lays potato chips stashed.. mmm.. But kilometers 100-120 seemed to last forever, as you take a turn off the highway and start heading BACK To osoyoos.. where you just came from!
Anyways, I took a couple minutes to get those chips and pop in, and headed back out. By this point it was 38 degrees outside. Insanely hot. Infact, the aid stations started running out of water, which was insane. There were 3 aid stations that I hit that were out of water, but at least they had sports drink still.
Then, there was the yellow lake hill. What I like to call the hill of death. It is a steep and decent sized hill after 140 kms of biking. It was hot, I was out of water, and my entire body was aching from being on the bike, and then I hit the hill. About half way up I started weezing, then I couldn't breathe... I was having an asthma attack. So I pulled over, and tried to catch my breath so I could take my inhaler. Then a lady came up beside me, started rubbing my back, brought me into the shade, and tried to calm me down with sucess and I was able to take my inhaler. I got on my bike, and at the top of the hill I saw my Dad, my sister, and my uncle! It was pretty much downhill into penticton from the top of the yellowlake hill and they drove beside me cheering me on and taking pictures for a good portion of the bike back. I was still on track, the bike took me 6 hours and 30 minutes, under the 7 hour limit I gave myself.. I was pretty excited. And remember yellow from the oliver race?! I even saw him!

Run:

Pulling into the transition and getting off that bike had never felt so good. By this point it was 4 pm. The thought of "running" a marathon was daunting. But I pictured ben out there, and that kept me going. I kept my eye out for him, because the run course was an out and back and I expected to see him about 2 hours into my run. (Little did I know he had pulled out because of siezed muscles after the bike). But he kept me going. There were aid stations every mile, and my goal was to run between every aid station and to walk through the aid stations. That only lasted 7 miles. It was so hot, oppressively hot. I would get ice at one aidstation and put it in my shirt and by the next aid station (1 mile later) it would be melted. I remember counting down the miles, I was in survival mode. I kept looking for ben, and when I didn't see him I assumed we had passed eachother while going through an aid station. I took the race as 26 individual miles. There was a group of us that were playing leapfrog and we motivated eachother. I remember at the turn around and realizing.. omg I'm only half way. it was 6:30, spectators were eating dinner on the side lines, and I was still out there. I remember being 10 miles from the finish line and I just started crying; Wondering what the heck I was doing. Then I remember around 8 miles to the finish line, the sun went behing the mountains and it started cooling off, and I slowly got a second wind. My brother's girlfriend's grandpa lives right on the course, and I remember passing their house and seeing her family there cheering me on and her dad running out to give me a high five. I remember hitting the 23 mile marker and that was it. It was go time. I pulled way head of the group I had been playing leap frog with. I did not walk the rest of the way. Infact, that last 3 miles was the fastest of any of the previous miles. About a mile from the finish line I saw my family. I ignored them, I had to, I was too close to the finish to get emotional and have another asthma attack. As I was 200 feet from the finish line, I felt a huge blister on my foot pop. But nothing was stopping me. Then, the pain, the agony were all forgotten when I crossed that line, and saw my family. All the training the past 9 months, came to that moment and it was better than I could have ever imagined. My final time was 14 hours 26 minutes. Which was 26 minutes slower than I thought, but I was content, I didn't care. Looking back the heat definitely slowed me down. ( I have a video of me finishing but I'm not sure how to post it, so if anyone has any recommendations).

I got my medal, my hat, my shirt, Ben was waiting with roses, and sam with champagne. It was amazing to have so much support. My (now) husband, brother, brother's girlfriend, sister, mom, mom's partner, dad, uncle, great aunt, and great uncle were all there and aparently the rest of my family watched me on tv. It was an amazing moment.

That night, I hardly slept. Too much adrenelin I think. I had a epson salt bath, put on compression pants, ate as much as I could considering my stomach was pretty upset from gels and gatorade all day. And we drove home on monday and I started thinking about the wedding! .. but I'll write more about that another time.

We're back!

I'm not even quite sure where to begin. When I wrote my last post, I was not an ironman, I was not married, I had never been to mexico or an all inclusive, and I did not have a job. The last 3 weeks has been amazing, incredible, unbelieveable. So much has gone on and I have just been trying to absorb as much as possible. It's all much to much to write about in one post and it's getting late. So, now that life is slowly going back into a routine, and we have our computer back, I will finally have time to reflect on everything that has happened. But, I wanted to say one thing; I am so thankful for my friends and family. We have never felt so supported and loved than we have during the last 3 weeks. We have really realized how lucky we are to have such amazing people in our lives, and we are so thankful to have been able to share with them such momentous moments in our lives. The last three weeks have not been without hiccups but all along the way our friends and family were there to help out and support us in any way that they could. They are amazing people, and we are we cannot express how grateful we are to every single person.

Next Week!?!

So, I had to book an appointment for next week to get some new makeup. At shoppers they do a makeover type thing and show you how to do your make up as long as you buy some, so I called to book an appointment for before the wedding (since I am clueless with makeup and all mine is pretty much from the free gifts that you get when you buy foundation at clinique during bonus days). So I called and tried to make an appointment for Sept 1st, and the girl goes "so i'll see you next thursday," and I replied "OMG I'm getting married next week!" It has oficially hit me, I am going to become Mrs Rendle next week. MRS! seriously, that makes me seem sooo ooold! I remember called all my friends parents Mrs ____ when I was little.

Anways, 2 posts in one day, I'm on a roll. But now back to getting everything ready for ironman and the wedding!