This is for you dad!

3rd place in my age group–15th female overall–78th out of all the men and woman who participated.

PR (personal record) by 6 minutes for a time of 5 hours, 1 minute and 19 seconds.

Many stories and photos about the kids tri and about the rest of my friends to follow soon.

And yes, I had many conversations with my dad along the way.

Breeding them competitive

All three kids will be doing the Chisago Lakes Kid’s triathlon tomorrow. There has been no practice or dress rehearsal like there was in the past few years.  They are just heading out to do it.

(photo from last year)

They all want to win so badly, I know there will be some broken hearts in the bunch.  I keep trying to tell them what I tell myself, “race the best race you can, today.”  It took me 4 years of triathlons to get that, to not get so wrapped up in what “place” I was going to get (you never know who will show up that day) and to just do the best I can, race against myself and that will have to be good enough for today.

But they are still young, with many miles to travel before they get that point and that is totally ok.  Hopefully by the time they are 39, they will.

On a side note, I will be racing the 1/2 iron race on Sunday.  It will be the first time my dad won’t be there to kiss me at the finish line, ok he was actually really sick and didn’t come to the finish line last year…but he was still here.

This race will be for him.

I miss you dad and the finish line just won’t be the same without you.

Congratulations!

Olivia & Ryan are getting hitched!

The next Sellke Family Reunion will be in Indiana next August, helping these two kick off their married life right.

Have fun with the wedding planning.  And don’t forget…there is always Vegas!

All our love.

God Bless the Fireman

What could better, in the heat of the summer, than getting doused with water from a fire truck?

Happy Father’s Day

The boys below, took off on their first annual Father’s Day golf outing this morning.  Three generations, enjoying the sun and each other.

Not sure you could ask for anything more.

Happy Father’s Day!

While they were away, KP, PJ, my mom and I had breakfast and took off to the cemetery.  Since we haven’t gotten a headstone yet, we decided to grab some rocks and some paint and do a little art therapy for the living.

Then we started walking around the cemetery and back behind the shed, were the caretakers keep stuff and throw other stuff away.

My mom found live plants in a pile of disregarded dead ones (Anne Marie, there were a few plant stands there too).  KP found an old rusted out dragon fly and PJ put together bouquets of weed-flowers.

When we put it all together my mom said, “Your dad would have loved doing this.”  I said, “Well, he wouldn’t have loved doing the art, he would have loved the fact that we were steeling this stuff from the back of the shed.”

I really miss you dad.

Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped away into the next room, I am I and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still, call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way you always used.

Put no difference into your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow, laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we always enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me, let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow in it.

Life means all that it ever meant, it is the same as it ever was, there is absolute unbroken continuity.

What is death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind, because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner, all is well.

Nothing is past; nothing is lost, one brief moment and all will be as it was before.

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral

The hood

My neighborhood homies showed up last night with a Princess cake and Prosecco to help me celebrate the big rollover.

Thanks you guys…you make forty feel just fine!

Cake tally: 3

Hell yeah I’m 40

God I love my birthday!  Flag day.  June.  Warm weather, ok it’s raining today but whatever, I still love it.

Here is the second cake of my month long celebration, do you see the ant walking on the tipped over ice cream cone?   Hmmm, maybe I should start making a cake tally.

Did you know I love cake?  Oh and coffee and red wine.  Do you see where this day is headed?

40 is so going to ROCK!

And they wrote 40 on my calf

Yesterday was the Liberty Triathlon.  70.3 miles of swimming, biking and running.

My season has typically ended with a race of this distance.  I train all summer to be able to do this.  But this year, it’s just a training on the calendar.  A base line of how things are going.  We hardly even taper.  It’s odd to say the least.

So how did the race go you ask?  Well, I had some mighty high expectations of myself…which is almost always a bad way to start.

The 1.2 mile swim: I headed into the water when the gun went off and within about 1 minute my arms and legs felt like logs, I felt like I couldn’t breath and I was having a hard time sighting the buoys.  This always happens to me.  The big FREAK OUT in the water.  I eventually found a good rhythm just in time for the wind to kick up and start bashing waves in my face.  I came out of the water and my watch said 37 minutes…a whole 5-7 minutes slower than I was hoping.

Transition 1: I went into transition, ripped off my wet suit, slide my arm warmers on and hopped on my bike.  No problems with the exception of some disappointment with the swim.

The 56 mile bike: Well, with all the bike drama I have been having I was not really looking forward to this leg of the race but they were not going to cut it out just for little’ol me, so onward.  Biking is hard for me, biking hurts and the little voice in my head just kept saying, you better just man the f*&% up if want to do well on this race.

My body was wet as I was not so quickly speeding down the road.  My hands started to become so cold that I couldn’t shift at all with my left hand and ended up doing everything with my right. This causes a little bit of unbalence and almost took me down as my elbow came up and off the aero bars.  My legs were burning and it was getting dark in my head.

It continued to get darker as my average pace slowed and the miles clipped along.  Then my team mate passed me like I was standing still.  If I didn’t like her so much I would have spit at her.  It was around that point in time that my mind and I were discussing the possibilities…just stop and not care anymore or bearing down, sucking it up and focusing on the best last leg possible.  It was my race I was racing and I had to let go who was passing me and that I might not catch them today.

I could fold or I could fight.

Transition 2: I happily slapped my bike on the rack and decided to sit down to put my shoes on.  I could not find my Yankz last night (bungee cords for your shoes) so I had to tie my shoes instead of just slip them on.  This proved to be a serious problem, I couldn’t feel my fingers and they were not going to let me do something as nimble as tie my laces.  So my shoes were on, but not tight.  I couldn’t even unclasp my helmet because my fingers couldn’t pinch hard enough to get the clasp undone, so I wiggled it around my chin and slipped it off.  Minuets wasted!

The run 13.1 miles: I decided I would just let the laces go, even though my feet were slipping around in my shoes from not being tight enough.  A friend yelled out that my feet and hands would get their feeling back around mile four, so I was determined to run until then, and then I could fix the problem.

Back on the bike, I decided to fight.  I decided to pull myself out of the not so happy place I was in and decided to do whatever I could to make the run the best it could be.  I took it one mile at a time, watching my pace and working the down hills as much as possible.  I was feeling pretty good, which meant the nutrition plan on the bike was good.  The miles clipped by as the rain kept coming.  I never stopped to tie my shoes again, why waste more time?  I finished the run leg in 1:48:30, almost catching my own half marathon PR of 1:47:50.  Not bad.

My finishing time 5:26:34. 5th in my age group (yup, they bumped me up to 40 even though I am 39 for two more days) and 11th over all the ladies.

My lesson learned this race, I am tough enough to pull myself out of a mental tail spin.  I’m gonna call that a success.

And kudos to all my buddies, my coach and my team mates racing yesterday.  You can find Diane 5th over all, Courtney 7th and jMatt 9th on leader board.  AND huge props to Cousin Katherine who WON the Olympic Distance race.

It’s super cool to race with such a talented group of people.

And the winner is….

So last night, Omar and Becca headed off in all their finery to The Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year^® gala to see if Omar would earn the prestigious award of Entrepreneur of The Year for Consumer Products.

AND HELL YES HE DID!

Congratulations Omar, Becca and Surly Brewing Company!

“Ernst & Young LLP is pleased to announce the winners of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® award in the Upper Midwest Region. This group of leading entrepreneurs was selected by an independent judging panel made up of regional business, academic and community leaders. The winners were revealed at a gala event on Thursday, June 10 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“Ernst & Young believes in the power of entrepreneurship,” said William Miller, Partner and Strategic Growth Markets Leader with Ernst & Young LLP’s Minneapolis office. “These Entrepreneur Of The Year award winners are best in class, and we are proud to honor their outstanding success.”

The Upper Midwest program recognizes companies based in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota. The Upper Midwest winners for the Ernst & Young LLP Entrepreneur Of The Year award in 2010 are:

·    Lifetime Achievement – M. A. “Mort” Mortenson, M. A. Mortenson Company (Golden Valley, Minnesota)
·    Master – Jack Link, Jack Link’s Beef Jerky (Minong, Wisconsin)
·    Emerging – Joe Keeley, College Nannies & Tutors (Wayzata, Minnesota)
·    Technology – John Romans, BioMedix Vascular Solutions (St. Paul, Minnesota)
·    Retail – Rollie Benjamin, ABRA Auto Body & Glass (Brooklyn Center, Minnesota)
·    Distribution – Jimmy Vosika, ShopJimmy.com
·    Consumer Services – Peter Taunton, Snap Fitness (Chanhassen, Minnesota)
·    Health Sciences – Jerome Ruzicka, Starkey Laboratories, Inc. (Eden Prairie, Minnesota)
·    Consumer Products – Omar Ansari, Surly Brewing Co. (Brooklyn Center, Minnesota)

The dead connection

So, do you think we connect with the dead or the dead connects with us?

I know, crazy pop is what you are thinking, but really??? Is it all coincidence or do we look for more meaning in the mundane happenings?

Yesterday, the kids were playing a game and they kept repeating the word AMAMENTO.  Now, that word means nothing to you and it was a made up word to them.  But to me, it stopped me in my tracks.  I turned to them and said, “What are you saying?”  They repeated, AMAMENTO!

The night my dad and I had our last conversation, he used that word.  He was confused and he was trying to get an idea out and all the languages he knew flooded together and out came AMAMENTO.  We joked about it and the conversation went on and on using the word.  He found out the made up word could be used for many things.  The word could be used affectionatley, my dad grabbed my mom’s hand, kissed it and tenderly said AMAMENTO.  Then it went to the other side of the coin where he put his fist up in the air and said, “Fucking AMAMENTO”.  It could be used for many things and we kept going as long as we could.

It made us laugh.

It was one of our last conversations.

My kids have never heard the word, but yet here it is.

I’m not sure if my dad was trying to communicate something to me from the other world or if it is just a happy coincidence that brought me right back to his memory.

Either way, it makes me feel close to him again.

AMAMENTO dad…AMAMENTO!