Remember when I said no Ironman races in'09?

So, remember when I said I wasn’t doing an Ironman next year? Well, I signed up for Ironman Canada today. On Friday, I heard Ginger tell a customer that I had done all of the North American Ironman races except for Canada and Hawaii. The day before I received an email from NAS saying there were a limited number of entries opening at 9 am today. Well, after I sat in the hotel lobby refreshing the page, I got in. After I sent it in, I started to freak out that I did it. WOW! I have never been to Canada and I might as well go. Since it was quite quick, I did not get to ask Doodle so I hope he doesn’t freak out. He has been to Canada several times and encouraged me to go with Elizabeth to sign up a few years ago.

Back to the present…Yesterday, I made the drive to Louisville, Kentucky. It was raining from North Carolina almost to Kentucky. Through the mountains in West Virginia the fog was so thick I could barely see. Fortunately, it stopped and I stopped and put the top down on the Jeep. Along the way, I had a great experience. I did not have enough cash for a toll and the toll booth operator paid the rest for me. When I arrived in Louisville, everyone was super friendly. I walked around Louisville and it is quite nice. My parents arrived later and we had a lovely dinner complete with half a bottle of wine that my mom and I shared.

After a wonderful night’s sleep (I guess so with 3 glasses of wine), I woke up and ran and my legs felt pretty good. After a yummy breakfast, I swam in the Ohio River and it really wasn’t that bad. I then went and rode for an hour and felt quite confident about my bike. Of course, then I spent half an hour in the lobby signing up for Ironman Canada. Then my parents and I went to this cute diner named for a dog, Boomer. After lunch, we went to the Louisville Slugger museum. It was sooooooooooo neat! Outside is the world’s biggest baseball bat and inside was all sorts of neat stuff about the players who use the Louisville Slugger. Also, we had a tour of the factory where they made the baseball bats. There was also an exhibit of baseballs that presidents had signed. Then we went to the Frazier Museum, which is a museum about different periods of conflicts. It was interesting. After our tourist activities, I popped over to the World Fest. Then my beautiful and talented friend, Elizabeth, called and I got to visit with her and her mom! Elizabeth is one of my favorite people. She is absolutely beautiful, smart, funny, nice and FAST! She could easily qualify for Kona and I hope she will. Elizabeth used to live close to us but then her husband got stationed in Washington. Elizabeth and I went to the Ironman Welcome Dinner and headed over to CVS to get Gatorade. There it is…two days before Ironman. Tomorrow, we will swim for a little while. I will do a short brick and then head to Churchill Downs for a tour with my parents. It will be an early night and hope to sleep quite well. I still wonder if I set my goals too high and did not train hard enough. For Ironman Canada, I am considering hiring a coach and really get serious. I really need to train harder and lose some weight. I need to have a conservative but quality training plan. I know I can do better! I just know it. My coach now is delightful and really cute but she could probably benefit from a different point of view.

4 days to go-#805

Got up this morning for an early run. It was sooooooooooooooo slow. Yesterday, I had to ride all over to get my Jeep so I got a bike ride in. Tomorrow, I am on my way...So much to do today-pack, 2 appointments, work, teach spinning, put stuff in Jeep. Now all the questions come up...did I train enough, did I train too much, should I have ran, bike or swam more...there is nothing that I can do now to change it. It is what it is...I hope it is good. The biggest question is...will my new crank and bottom bracket come today and will my bike be ready to go? I have another road bike that I can ride but I do not run that well off that bike. Thank goodness it happened here.

Checked my number last night and it is #805. Check www.ironmanlive.com on Sunday and you can put my number in and see where I am. Pray for a good day and add a little prayer for the best race ever.

Tomorrow-travel day
Friday-swim, bike, run
Saturday-small brick, short swim
SUNDAY...IRONMAN!!!!!

Another day, another drama

So, I get up this morning and despite reports of rain, it is not raining. I am feeling lucky because I have to ride my bike home after I drop the Jeep off at the Jeep dealership (to fix the repairs where the lady rearended me last week). So, I load up the bike and start on my way. About now it starts to pour. Oh well, the ride is about 8-9 miles and I can ride and get home, get a run in before I have to go to school. I drop off the Jeep and unload my bike and start to ride. I step down on the left pedal to clip in and I hear a strange noise. Then I realize that the left pedal is not coming up when I pull up. The crank is broken. Well, of course, I did not bring my cell phone because I did not want it to get wet (because I have already had to replace it from water damage not 3 weeks ago). So, I decide that I will ride over to the bike shop where I work part-time and fix the pedal myself. So, I ride about 2-3 miles to the bike shop, pedaling with one leg. So, imagine for a minute...I am riding in the pouring rain and can only pedal with one leg. I get to the shop and I cannot fix it. Wait, did I mention this is the bike I am doing Ironman in on Sunday? So, I call Sandy and ask her if I can borrow a bike to get home to get to school. I, of course, burst into tears when trying to explain this. She tells me to take any bike I need to and head home. So, I grab the easiest bike I can get to which is a 53 cm cyclocross bike, which is too big for me and of course, has the wrong pedals on it. I start home and while I can pedal with both legs, I cannot clip in and have to pedal on my toes because of my cleats. In the meantime, I lose both flat sides of the clipless pedals on the cyclocross bike. I get home and it stops raining. AAAAAHHHH! About now, you are probably asking yourself "Why did she not ask for help?" Hello, that would mean I would have to depend on someone else and do not want to trouble anyone. Being a Capricorn (whose sign is the goat), I am extremely stubborn and am convinced I can do everything on my own...even though I am continually reminded, I cannot! Oh well, more material for my best seller. At least the crank arm broke now and instead of at Ironman on Sunday. Now, I am convinced I will do great on Sunday because all the bad stuff has already happened.

One day I am going to have a best seller....

Any time my husband is far enough away that he cannot return quickly, some thing (okay, many things) go hay wire in my life....here is the latest example...

So, today I decide I am going to cut the grass so Leona and I can go to the beach tomorrow. I get the lawnmower and off I go. Mow the front yard and the lawnmower works just fine. Get to the back yard and with my ADD self, I cannot cut the grass in straight lines. I have to go in some funky jacked up way...not even a pattern. But I think I will cut the grass and start cleaning the house so when I get home from the beach tomorrow I can just hang out in my clean house with the manicured lawn. So, about half way through the lawnmower starts smoking and I think that something is wrong with the oil. Well, it stops and there is some oil on the mower but it starts up again. First thing I notice is all the bugs are gone! WOW, I think the smoke cleared away the bugs and I could leave the windows open without fear of getting eaten alive. So, I continue in my jacked up lawnmowing way and finally the lawnmower dies. After several attempts, I figure it is better for me to leave it and maybe somehow someway it will fix itself. Of course, I leave it in the middle of the backyard. I then decide to get the weedwacker and trim the rest of the grass because in my brain there is not that much left. So, I start weedwacking away. Now, the weedwacker is cordless and dies after about 10 minutes. Not to mention that thing gets a little heavy my forearms feel like I have been beat up by the closest UFC fighter. So, here I sit...lawn looks some psycho elf half assed mowed it, dead lawnmower sitting in the middle of the back yard, dead weedwacker on the charger. All hopes of becoming the more efficient wife and better housekeeper dead...better get the wine because I am really good at that. And once I have had enough wine I won't care about the yard and I might convince myself that it looks just fine and I might have discovered a new landscaping trick. Heck, I won't even care the house looks like a hurricane hit it. Bless my heart and bring on the wine!

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night tovisit violence on those who would do us harm."-George Orwell

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."-George Orwell

Today, I read this on a forwarded email. Like a lot of people I have been watching the Olympics religiously nightly (sometimes very late into the night) and while I am totally amazed at their athletic feats and blown away by their natural abilities, I have only heard one American athlete (funny it was an athlete that I don't really respect - Kobe Bryant) say anything about our troops overseas who have given them the ability to compete at these Olympic games. This is a subject I am extremely passionate about because one of those troops is my husband. He spends a lot of time away from home because of this. I even forget that he gives me the freedom to do all of these athletic feats (on a much smaller scale than the Olympics) and his willingness to visit violence on those who do us harm also allows me the freedom to do all of these things I take for granted. Most of us do not think of the war going on a daily basis far far away and we go on about our every day lives taking all of this for granted. We forget that there are actually people fighting for our freedom. Every night we go to bed and most of us do not give the troops another thought...these are the very people that allow us to go on about with our lives. We do not think of the sacrifices these troops make...and some will make and have made the ultimate sacrifice. It doesn't matter your political persuasion or your views on the war, we are able to sleep safely in our comfy beds every night because of these troops. What's the point? Just to make us all stop and think and maybe even say a quick prayer for our troops (past, present and future) and respect their undying devotion to our country. Some of them have given much more than any Olympic athlete competing today. Off the soapbox...

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do. -Eleanor Roosevelt

This is at the signature at the end of my email and I have written about it before. Maybe I actually followed it yesterday...Only three other people knew I was even considering swimming the 800 meters at the post swim meet. I had never swam at a swim meet before and I was scared I would embarrass myself and end up last. So, yesterday, after teaching spin class, I sped like a mad woman to post and got there just in time. There were lots of people I knew there which made it worse because if I was going embarrass myself at least I did not want everyone in God's green earth to see it. So, when I got to my lane, my timer asked me what I thought I would swim and I said about 17 minutes. Well, sure enough...I had a decent swim but I was dead last. Yes...exactly what I was afraid of. Good news, I did finish 15:41. At first, I was mortified in the water because I could see people passing me and actually lapping me. I thought of all the excuses (I swam 1800 yards this morning, I am a long distance athlete and do not warm up until after 1000 yards, I just came from spin class, yada yadaada) that I could make but finally on the way home I realized...I did it and I did not die from embarrassment and no one really cared but me. The best thing is I did something that really scared me. Is it scary to most people? Probably not but it was to me!

Today, I ran 55 minutes this morning and rode this afternoon. The week (as usual) has not worked out quite as I planned but it is not a bad week! Tomorrow, a swim and run.

Note for the day...do something that scares you...even if you do not completely succeed - at least you tried and that is winning!

2 more weeks...

2 more weeks to IM Louisville! This week's workouts...
Monday-swim, run, teach one spin class
Tuesday-run, bike, yoga, and weights
Wednesday-swim
Thursday-run, bike, and weights
Friday-swim
Saturday-short brick
Sunday-BEACH - JEEP RIDE!!!!!!