Sarah Borst Jarvis

American TV is driving me crazy . I can't handle it. Not one minute of it. That is why we don't have TV at our house. At all. But I thought I could maybe handle NBC's coverage of the Hawaii Ironman World Championships . So I packed my bag and headed over to the YMCA. Gotta love the treadmills with your own little integrated TV. The coverage definitely had its good moments but overall it was very disappointing . What's up with the soothing, low voice of the narrator? And all the slow motion, especially during the swim? Why, oh why do they have to add so much drama? The race itself is plenty dramatic. How come they never even mentioned or showed the Age Group champions? The coverage of the women's race was poor, to say the least. I could go on and on but I will spare you. Here is what I did like: Macca . Not that I necessarily like him as a person but you've gotta admit that he was awesome! I also enjoyed his trash talking during the interview. Definitely not as ...

I enjoyed a gym extravaganza the other day. It was awesome. Thursday at midnight Karl needed to turn in his last project of the semester. Friday he was a free man ! (For the next 2 weeks, at least.) So, magnificent wife that I am, I signed him up as the parent helper for Noah's preschool party. I made sure Max was able to come as well, so I would have the whole morning to myself ! Preschool is 9-12. That was not going to quite cut it, so I left the whole get-the-kids-dressed-fed-and-groomed to Karl as well and headed out the door before 8. Here is how it went down: Run - 1:15 - HR zone 2 Spin class - 1:00 Body Sculpture class - 1:00 Core class - 0:30 Elliptical - 0:15 Overall - 4:00 Some was hard , most was fun , and all was just really good ! Thank you, Karl. I went back on the treadmill the next day for a nice 2-hour run during NBC's Kona coverage . More on that later. I need to go outside and get some fresh air for once...

(I really only love the gym in bad weather . Or when I need a safe place for my little tag-along(s). Which is quite frequent these days. Not having Jen or Grandma/Grandpa around can sure be a challenge . But, no worries, I will always find a way to sneak in my workouts.) In my book, nothing beats biking outside in sunny, warm weather with a great group of athletes. And who would have thought that I would have the chance to do just that at 7,000 feet in mid-December ??? I was thrilled. Rewind a few weeks. I had heard about the group ride leaving Saturday morning and riding about 60 miles. But I had also heard that they are fast, cyclists, and mostly guys. I had no desire to show up as a female triathlete on a TT bike. I'd rather ride by myself. Then Karl turned my old TT bike into a road bike . A day later I was ready to (try to) roll with the Big Boys. It went just like I had expected. A bunch of stuck-up cyclists wearing the latest gear on the nicest bikes. Of course, the ones ...

Truth is: I always knew that when I'd find the right gym, I would love it. I just had never found the right one. Until now. I was pushing Max in the Chariot for almost all of my runs in September and October. I did not really mind since it was the off season and very nice outside. We played about as much as we ran. So the whole thing took a couple of hours. It was great fun! (Except for the hill repeats I attempted with 40lbs Max and 30lbs library books on trail.) But then off season ended and heart rate training began. And it got cold! Pushing 70lbs obviously affects your heart rate, and without a Garmin I only had one choice: the dreaded treadmill ! One of my problems with the gym is that I don't want to drive there. I will not drive to the gym on a regular basis. Preferably not at all. But who has a gym in their backyard ? Well, we do now! The local family YMCA is about a 3 minute walk from our apartment. It is brand new. It opened in April of this year. It's very ...

(by Karl) Muslims have their Mecca. Country singers have their Nashville. Emperor penguins have their special spot in the Antarctic. And ultrarunners have the Grand Canyon . Those of us that choose to lose brain cells by running long miles in the backcountry feel a beckoning to come and run across that certain spectacular Big Ditch and back again. I’ll admit that part of my decision to come to Flagstaff for graduate school did have something to do with it being the closest university to that notorious gulch. Prior to moving to Arizona I hadn’t had a chance to come on a Rim-to-Rim-to-Rim trip. Boy, was I missing out. As we started organizing the trip, we had a pretty large group of interested folks, but I ended up with a little group of great companions: Jared Campbell and Jay Aldous from SLC, and Matt Zinkgraf from Flagstaff. We chose to start from the North Rim, partly because it was closer to Utah for the guys coming so far already, but also because none of us had...

I hate gyms. I really do. And I always have. My first time in a gym was on October 31st in 2003. Gold's Gym in Provo. I thought that if I just went in, maybe it would not be so bad, and I could convince myself to join. The second I walked in, I realized it was a mistake . No way was I going to stay in that place longer than I absolutely had to. But it was too late. One of the sleek bodybuilding employees had already eyed a potential new customer and I could not escape his claws. I don't remember the details of our conversation because all I could think was: "I wanna get out of here. How am I gonna get out of here? Let me out of here!" Finally, I made it out. And I did not set foot into another gym for 7 years. Let me digress here for a minute. As an exchange student in high school, my "sister" Andee and I had sleep overs every single night. I loved everything about our sleep overs except this one poster she had in her room. It was disgusting. To me. T...

I love autumn for many different reasons. One of them being the chance to cross-train ! I had not been on a mountain bike since the XTERRA last year, when Jennifer invited me to hit some trails a few weeks ago. Of course I could not say 'No'. I love mountain biking. BUT I have no skills on a mountain bike. I made sure Jennifer was aware of both. on top of Mount Elden I must have faired pretty well since Jennifer agreed to take me out again last Saturday. (I attribute this to the fact that I can run rather fast while pushing the bike.) I'll go out on a road bike by myself any day. When it comes to biking on trails, I like to just follow the leader . Especially in a new place, I guess. But this time things did not go so smoothly. I ended up with a handful of issues . Issue #1 : My trusted mechanic and babysitter was out of town . Karl thought it would be fun to do a double crossing of the Grand Canyon. So he was busy running from the north rim to the south rim, and b...