I get by with a little help from my friends.

Friend.

friend

 [frend] 

–noun

1.

a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.

2.

a person who gives assistance; patron; supporter: 

 Just that word alone makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.  They are there for you when you are up.  They are there for you when you are down.  When you date, marry, divorce, have kids, have accidents, make mistakes, laugh with you, cry with you, love you, hate you. They keep your secrets, know when you are hurting, and know when you just need to sit in silence with them.  Know when to open a good bottle of red, or grab the Kleenex and chocolate. They wipe your tears, and make your smile lines appear radiantly on your face. They swell your heart and break your heart.  I have seen friends come and go, watched them suffer, and celebrated with them.  In my forty years I have had some amazing friends.  Some I have had since I was 4 or 5 years old.  That's alot of time. Alot of laughs, alot of secrets, and a whole lotta history.  Some are new, and even though they just walked into your life, it's like you were meant to be, and you know they will be a part of you for the rest of your life.  I truly have the best friends.

Team: Denny & The Divas and The Hammer Gals

We hang out often, training, BBQing, laughing, dancing, boating, skiing, traveling, racing...you name it.  This weekend was no exception.  Race Day!  Coeur d' Alene Triathlon.
As I had said, I have never raced a Tri as a team.  I was skeptical, and nervous.  I train with these cats all the time, but race day was something different for all of us.  Most of us are runners, and triathletes...and that means other than training together, when we race, we are solo.  Tr-I-athlete.
  We gathered in the morning.  Body marking, watching the water, going over transitions.  We were nervous.  Us girls, were fidgety.  Couldn't figure out where the nerves were coming from.  We talked about being nervous for Ironman....this was different, intense.  We weren't solo on this.  This was a team effort.  If one goes down, we all go down.  We had to ebb and flow as one.  Supporting each leg as we went along.  My team: Denny and the Divas.  Dennis, our biker dude, Natalie, a women who grows gills as soon as she steps in water, and myself.  I knew going in, that our team would be great!  We are all strong.  Tough. Disciplined.  I also knew, I had to be "game on" for my team.  Dennis is a strong biker.  Fast and powerful on those hills.  He would tear that course apart.  And Natalie, well she is ridiculous when she is in the water.  Strong, competitive, and fearless.

Denny & The Divas (Dennis, Nat and Me)

The Hammer Gals (Bren, Renee & Connie)

Our race started.  I waited on the beach while Nat took off.  The plan was for me to watch her swim, wait for her to get onto the beach and run to transition to yell at Dennis who was waiting to take off on the bike.  She was out of that 1-mile swim in 25 minutes. Told ya she's amazing!

Natalie heading for the H2O...see her arms are starting to grow gills. =)

   I ran up the beach.  Dennis was ready.  A quick tag from Nat and he was off.  Fast.  My stomach was turning.  Don't let these guys down today!  The runners in transition including myself were warming up.  Small talking and all of us watching the bike dismount for our bikers.  Knowing exactly what Dennis was wearing, we watched, and waited.  In he came.  His 25-mile bike 1:12 Smoking fast on some tough as heck hills.  WOW!

I ran up for the tag...and I was off.  Fast.  Looking at my Garmin I knew I would need to slow down and pace myself.  Running at a 6:00 pace, and lower I would burn out and never make it.  Steady up....but man, I was excited and still nervous.  I finally found my pace, and rocked out 6.2 miles in 49 minutes, not too bad. I felt great, and strong, and happy to be running for my team.  We placed 2nd.  Not bad for a first time team.  We were crazy happy.  We cheered and celebrated our success.

We had a lot of friends racing, who all did a fantastic job!! Team Hammer Gals (Renee, Brenda & Connie), Tom, Steph, Cathy, Greg (doing his first Oly distance)  and many more.

Greg crossing the finish of his first Oly!!

Awesome couple and great friends!!

Gotta love the smile on Cathy's face!!

Greg & Tom ready to ROCK!!!

  The day was awesome, the course was amazing and race was incredible! We celebrated all our successes that night with a BBQ at our house.  Great food,  lot's of great friends, great wine, great race!!!

“Even though we've changed and we're all finding our own place in the world, we all know that when the tears fall or the smile spreads across our face, we'll come to each other because no matter where this crazy world takes us, nothing will ever change so much to the point where we're not all still friends.”

“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked”

My IM training partner, fellow Diva and Fish friend, Natalie.