Team Illg!

If you would have gone to the Triathlon in Ogallala yesterday, you would have seen this crazy team of family members walking around. This is starting to become a bit of a yearly family get together. It started with just Mom and Robin, now it has grown a little and is expected to grow more. Breaking down the teams a little more... 64: I ran, and Momma swam and biked. (She was going to do the whole thing, but her doctor said that her hip was too messed up to run. However, swimming and biking is actually good for her hip. She is expecting a hip replacement soon.) 58: My Momma's cousin Robin did the entire Triathlon! She did amazing. I call her Aunt Robin even though she technically isn't my aunt. 122- Darwyn biked. (He is Robin's Dad.) Jim swam. (He is my Mom's uncle.) Jackie ran. (She is married to Darwyn.)

Jackie and I get a long quite well. She is a lot like my Grandma. Saturday morning, we were looking at old pictures of my Grandma from when she was a teenager. They held them up to me and had me smile, meanwhile, every jaw in the room dropped. "Holy cow! She is a blonde version of Brenda! (Insert Illg laugh here.)" Ahh the Illg laugh... Friday night before Syd came over, all of us were sitting in the living room talking before we had to make supper. This happens every time all of us Illg women get together. People start yelling at each other across the room, making everyone else talk (and laugh) louder, and then we some how all end up doing the Illg laugh at the end. And then the entire process starts over again. It's just the way my family is. Another thing that always goes down when the Illgs get together is a big drinking fest. My Aunt Jackie walked in the house with a fairly large box full of alcoholic beverages. This annoys me to no end. After supper, we were sitting in the family room talking about plotting Grandma and Grandpa's 50th Anniversary next year. Sassy Uncle Jim practically yelled, "What about booze? Annastazia can provide that!" I rolled my eyes at the half drunk man, "That is illegal Uncle Jim, and you don't need anymore." As Jim, Judy, Jackie, and Darwyn left Grandma's house on Friday night to go to their hotel, I yelled at Uncle Jim, "Hey! No more alcohol for you tonight, Mister! You need to be able to swim in a straight line tomorrow morning." He thought this was funny and continued to stumble out the door.

The Triathlon was a lot of fun! I was able to talk to a lot of people that I had not seen in a long time, as well as joke around with my family about how bad we were all going to do. I waited until Mom was about half way through her bike ride to start getting ready to run, but I got distracted by talking to someone. I just happened to look over awhile later and see Mom coming around the corner, ready to enter the exchange zone. I ran over to the area and helped her rack her bike. She pinned the number on my shirt while I strapped on the ankle timer, and then I took off. I was feeling good for the first couple of blocks. It was quite enjoyable. I was trying to count the blocks to see how far I had gone, but I forgot how many city blocks made up a mile. It's easy to tell how far I have gone when I am running at home because each section is a mile, but city blocks have to be all complicated. I started getting a strange pain in my ankle. I couldn't figure out what it was, and then it popped into my head. A couple months ago, I was talking to Evan's Mom and she said that she did most of her half marathon training on gravel, and when she got to the actual race, her joints killed from running on the cement. I thought she was crazy. If anything, gravel would be more rough to run on. I was wrong. I finally made it to the turn around spot, but as I was looping around the street, I rolled my stupid ankle. I. Am. So. Clumsy. The run back was way worse. I only had to walk for one block, so I was happy about that. The last three blocks were the worst, but thankfully I finished.

In Sunday School today my friend Carlie looked at my arm and asked, "What happened???" I looked at my arm, "Oh, my number didn't quite wash off from the triathlon yesterday." She giggled, "I thought it was a bruise!"..... I rolled my eyes, "Yes, Carlie, because most bruises are in the shape of the number 64." And she calls me the dumb one...

By the way, I successfully made it through the entire weekend with out any of my friends hearing my Illg laugh. Mine isn't as bad as Jackie's or Mom's, but holy cow, it is annoying. Syd was so mad that she didn't get to hear it, I was relieved.