Let the fun begin!

Race day is tomorrow! Funny how our worries have changed in a week. First, I was freaked out by the cold water in the swim....then I was freaked out by the hilly bike....now I am freaked out by the warm temps. It literally warmed up 20-25 degrees since we have been here. The good news is that the water has warmed up and my worries on the bike have shifted to a very smokin hot run. All in all, we are excited! It will be fun....so no worrying about us, Moms! :)

To track us online, go to www.ironman.com. It will be active tomorrow morning when the race starts. You will select athlete tracker and either enter our race numbers, or just our last name (#542 & 2193). The race starts at 7 am.

Thanks to all our awesome family and friends for your support and encouraging words! Say lots of prayers for us and send us good thoughts tomorrow, we will sure use them all!

We have lots of cheerleaders this year, so it will be fun! Neil, Shannon, Hawk, Beaker & Brendan, and Jason's lifelong friend, Chris, surprised us and came in today from Oregon! My only hope is not to embarrass my coach tomorrow, hope we make you proud, Beaker!! ;)

Holy Hills

Today, Jason and I rode the most hilly section of the bike course of the race. It reminded me of how hard this bike course is.....at least in my opinion. It is absolutely beautiful and a very fun bike ride, but it is hard! The race advertises rolling hills, but even being from Alaska, I would not call it that. The heat also cranked up today, I think it was at least 81 degrees and felt mighty toasty. I'm not sure what is better, last year's frigid temps, or 80 degrees. I guess we'll just see what Sunday brings, there's nothing we can do to control the weather!

It will be fun to do this race for the second time, we are both hoping that it will be easier than it was for us last year....it couldn't get worse could it?!?! Somehow, I have a feeling they keep getting harder the faster and faster you try to race them! I am preparing for the worst, hoping for the best!

The most stressful part of an Ironman for me is the swim start. Once I am over the first 15-20 mins of the swim, I will be so glad and the nerves will settle! Jason said he doesn't get nervous, just excited. I wish I was Jason, ha! ;)

4 Days & Counting

Holy cow, time is going by so fast! I can't believe we are almost to race day. I forgot to bring the cord to upload photos, so the blog will be boring for awhile. We have been having lots of fun in WA/ID with Jason's family. Jeni and Aaron were here for the weekend and it was good to see them. The weather had been really rainy two days in a row, but the other 2 days were really nice. It is supposed to keep getting warmer....tomorrow reaching 80 degrees. That will be perfect lounging by the lake weather, but I hope that it cools down on Sunday. The water was so incredibly cold yesterday, but miraculously it warmed up significantly today with a bunch of sun. I was not sure I could swim in that cold of water, but it is getting better, so I am very glad.

We have had a few shorter workouts and I am feeling very sluggish and like a tubby tiger. All this being lazy and eating lots of food is probably not the best pre-race idea. Jason is feeling like a different person, he is finally better and back into he swing of things. I hope his belly can stay settled on race day. I am tired. I took naps two days in a row and I never ever take a nap.

Beaker and Brendan are coming from Anchorage to cheer us on this Thursday! They are one amazing couple and we are excited for them to get here. I bet that Beaker will be more nervous than we are on race morning/day. :) It's more difficult trying to watch someone race than it is doing it yourself!

This evening, Jason and I went to visit my Grandpa. He lives about an hour away and it was great to see him, he is the best!

Hope all is well with all of you. Thanks for the good thoughts and well wishes!

The Kerstens (Jason #542 & Kim #2193)

I forgot to mention race numbers are posted! I am totally superstitious about race numbers. If I have a good number, I feel good about the race before hand. I love Jason's number. I do not love my number, so be sure to send it some good vibes. Everyone thinks I am crazy....but I am not! ;)

Idaho/Washington Bound!

We fly to Spokane today! I was having heartburn over leaving my little blonde baby, so what better to do than take a new puppy to your in-laws house! That's one good way to never get invited back. :) Ha, ha....only kidding, I hope! Hopefully Stella will be on her best behavior and not make Jason and I look bad!

Jason's sister, Jeni, and her boyfriend, Aaron, are also flying to Spokane today from Denver. They were our cheerleaders last year on the race!

I am worried about Stella on the plane! At least the puppy makes me forget the entire reason I am flying and about to torture ourselves with 140.6 miles.

Did I mention how cold Lake Coeur D'Alene is? Hawk was supposed to give us water temperature reports, but all I get is that it is COLD. Today, I researched the water temps and it ranges from 57.7-61 degrees. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!! That is super cold even for Alaskan kids!

Puppies are more fun than triathlons

We are 1 1/2 weeks away from our race. I hate the last two months leading up to an Ironman. The month of May was a monster. The month of June is when we started to taper for the race, so it should generally be fun. By this point, I am just sick of all of this and ready for it to be over. I am having much more fun playing with Stella. She is turning into a very good little dog, she has already learned to sit and shake hands and she is only 9 weeks old.

My motivation for doing much of anything is pretty low. Hopefully, I will get a spark in then next 10 days! Jason has been the one that is concerning me the most. He has had belly issues for the past month and has reduced his workouts in order to try and recover. We're not really sure what was wrong with him, but the good news is that he is slowly starting to feel better. I hope he feels 100% by race day. He has worked way too hard to go to a race not feeling good. He is the sole reason I signed up for this race and I would be really bummed if he didn't have the best race possible. He has been pretty frustrated and I can't blame him. Hopefully everything will fall into place for him! Send him good thoughts and prayers!

We leave on Friday for Spokane and are excited to see Jason's family! Hopefully I will be better at updating when I get more time.

Beaker qualifies for 70.3 World Championships!

Awesome job, Beaker! I know she is a bit bummed about her race, but she still ended up qualifying for the 1/2 Ironman World Championships in Florida! Her time was ~5 hrs 21 minutes. That is an incredible time on such a hard 1/2 Ironman course!! She had a smoking fast run (1 hr 45 minutes for 13.1 miles) after swimming 1.2 miles and biking 56 miles with a lot of hills! To put this in perspective, I think my fastest 1/2 marathon time alone (no bike or swim) was about 1 hr 43 minutes. Her goal was to qualify for IM Kona, but there are only a handful of slots awarded and the ladies that won her age group we INSANELY fast. NEXT YEAR BEAKER!!!! You will get there.

Arctic Terra, LLC

Jason's new business is official with a name and logo! He even had me shoveling dirt on my day off! ;)

Good Luck Coach B!!!

Coach B, aka Beaker, is doing her "A" race tomorrow in Hawaii, which is a 1/2 Ironman (Honu; 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and 13.1 mile run). She is on a journey for one of the coveted Ironman World Championship slots. She has been working hard for several years to meet her goal and each year she keeps getting faster. Remember, we eat wind sandwiches for breakfast! That's what Jason always tries to tell me when we are battling the Turnagain winds! The Honu is a brutal race due to the extreme heat and winds as well as a difficult swim, run and bike course.

Some of you might not know what it takes to qualify for the Ironman World Championships that are in Kona, Hawaii every year in October. For most people, they could train their entire life and not be within reach of getting to Kona. The people that get an IM slot are almost freaks of nature. You seriously have to be the best swimmer, best biker and finish that with a smokin fast run time. The people that win the IM slots could hands down compete with an athlete that solely focused on one of the three sports. The IM slots are given away in each age group (30-34,35-39, etc). The number given to each group depends upon how many people are in the age group and varies between men and women. Generally there are more male slots because there are more men racing. There is no way to plan a certain time that you need to race in order to win a slot. It all depends on who shows up to race that day; you need to be faster than your competitors! As the popularity of triathlon grows, so does the speed at which athletes are finishing these races.

There is one other way to get to Kona....and that is how I plan to make it there some day! There is a lottery in which 150 US residents are supposedly "randomly" selected to participate with all of the other athletes that earned their slot. I put in for it every year and every year I just know my name will get drawn out of the hat. So far, I am still waiting!

Good luck, Coach B! You won't need your name out of a hat, you will EARN your slot, which is way more awesome!!!

Meet Stella!

Our next exciting addition is a four legged terrorist named Stella. Her nickname is a bit harsh, it depends on the day and how frustrated I am. Today is a frustration day. There is nothing better than eating your breakfast at the table and getting a whiff of something not so pleasant. I look around and find a pile of pooh in the corner of our living room on white carpet. Not to mention, last night....she normally sits on our front lawn for hours just looking around and chewing on a bone (which is very amazing for a puppy and she mislead us on how good she was). Last night, she was no longer on the front lawn, so I searched all around our house for her, yelling her name nicely. I wandered to our neighbors and I see this little apricot dog head peeped over their bushes with her face caked with dirt and mud. It was actually really funny, but I couldn't let her know that. She had dug a hole in our neighbors empty flower bed. I frantically grab her and quickly use my hands to fill their hole back up with dirt. After, I begin to tell her how bad she is and spank her butt, within a minute she is wanting to play and has forgotten the entire thing just happened. I hope the neighbors didn't see me out their window! :)




To back up a bit, I have been searching for a Labradoodle or Goldendoodle for months. After a bit of convincing J that a Doodle dog would be a good choice, he agreed that we could get one after our race in June. We had planned to pick one up in Idaho or Washington. Many breeders that I found were very expensive! I had also been looking at the local listings just to see what was out there. In the past 3 months of daily searches, I had never seen a Doodle listed in Anchorage. To my surprise, about 2 weeks ago I saw a posting for apricot Labradoodles that would be ready on June 1st and their price was the cheapest I found anywhere. The timing of this puppy could not be worse for Jason and I as we are leading up to our major race of the year, but how could we refuse! We went to Big Lake to pick out our puppy (which took awhile, it was a toss up between her and a boy....but she won us over on how sweet and calm she is). The breeder said that the puppies were no longer feeding from their mom and that we could take Stella home with us immediately. It was a quick decision, but we went for it.

It has been a bit of a chore trying to balance a puppy and training, but we are lucky that she really is good for 95% of the time. She rides around with Jason all day and hasn't destroyed anything major YET. She's also pretty independent so she will sleep alone and go outside by herself. If we could just change her 4-5AM wake up time!!! And her pooping on the white floor!!!!!!!!!!

We love her though, she's wrapped around Jason's finger!

One of our new additions....

A lot of things have happened in the past couple weeks. I think it might be easier to do multiple postings.

Jason used to have a truck through his old job, but lost the truck when he was laid off. Since February, we were sharing my Volvo and it was turning into a very high-end, inefficient work truck. Since my dad is a good mechanic, I asked him what type of truck he recommended for Jason to buy. The next day, he graciously offered up his truck to help Jason and me out as Jason starts his new business. Dad really didn’t need a new truck, but he liked to convince us otherwise. My dad has a heart of gold and is always helping people when they are either down in luck or just because he thinks someone needs help with something.


A couple weeks ago, J and I made a fast trip to Fairbanks. We had lunch with Jason’s mom, Joan, and my parents. Afterwards, we went to my parent’s house and Jason was very shocked to see my Dad’s truck. I think he was expecting something much older and abused. I am completely spoiled. Not only did my mom scrub the truck inside/out and replaced the windshield, she made a batch of my favorite cookies (probably more for J than me) and loaded us up with homemade blueberry jam and pickled beets. Dad filled the truck with spare tires and all kinds of filters and goodies as well as a full tank of gas. And….to top it off, my brother gave us his old Toyo stove for our garage!!

After we left, Jason said he felt like he stole something and feels very fortunate for their kindness. After writing all this and looking back, I feel like I stole something too. All I can say is that I am one lucky kid. Thanks Mom & Dad!