Whatchu Got?

Patrick and Kovas made me do it, I swear. 

The thing about running or triathlon-ing is, the more you do it, the more gear you “need.”  Suddenly, the garage that used to be full of cars is full of bikes, and the shoe rack of high heels is replaced with boxes of Newtons.  These are good changes, for sure, but sometimes it’s a challenge to find storage for the multisport lifestyle.

So, without further ado, here’s my stuff in its natural habitat:

Four people in the house, seven bikes in the garage – you do the math.

The top bike on the left is Mr. Bicycle Wheels McBikington, The Hubs’ tri bike (a Cervelo P2 carbon).  On the bottom left is Mr. Bike, my tri bike (a Cervelo P2-SL).  On the right is my road bike Shirley, a Fuji Finest 2.0.  In the foreground are the kids’ Specialized Hotrock 24s, my Specialized Hardrock (named Frederick) and The Hubs’ “Frankenbike” – a road bike he made himself from parts.  We have a makeshift bike repair area in front of the car, a helmet/gear stand next to that, and a towel on the ground for transition practice.

The bike trainer makes its permanent home in our living room, in between the couches.  I would give my left arm to have a basement for training, but there’s no such thing in California. *sigh*

We take our shoes pretty seriously around here, and boy do we love our Newtons!

This is actually an old bookshelf that we keep in our closet to organize shoes (and a few books… but mostly shoes).  And yes, the boxes have shoes in them, too – another pair of Mizunos and some Nike Lunarglides in mine and goodness only knows what in The Hubs’ boxes.  You’ll notice that my running shoes are all tidy and the rest of them are just sort of thrown in there.  A girl’s got her priorities, you know.

These all get stashed in the drawer when company comes.

This is my least favorite picture, but it’s the truth:  the Garmins just sit in a pile on the computer desk, which is in the front room of my house.  A 310xt for The Hubs (with the detachable wrist strap and heart rate monitor), a 305 for me and The Hubs’ old 301 that the boys use.  Yes, my children train with a Garmin, sue me.  My embarassingly old iPod Nano generally sits on top of the printer in its stinky arm band that rarely gets washed.  We are far too lazy to put any of them away regularly, so here they sit.

Our backyard pool is just ten meters long, so it takes a whole lotta turns to get in a good workout.  You can’t beat the convenience, though.

There are some things I didn’t take pictures of, too:  the three wetsuits that hang in the closet, the shelf full of Spinervals DVDs under the TV and the TWO clotheslines we’ve installed to air dry our fancy, handwash-only, wicking clothing.  This isn’t just a hobby, people, it’s a lifestyle!

Now it’s your turn – whatchu got???