It's Summm-aaahhh!

As summer is rolling into Coeur d’Alene (we are going to have summer, right??) and the race season is starting up, you’ve just gotta love the fun and a excitement around this city!  Car d’Lane is this weekend….and I keep seeing the old cars and hot rods coming into town.  Ironman is in a week and a half!  After racing it last year, this season as been so different for me.  I get to be out there volunteering, and supporting all of these amazing athletes racing this year.  I am over-the-top excited for my friends racing this year.  Some, veterans of IMCdA, and a few first timers.  It has been fun listening to them talk about their upcoming race.  Nerves are kicking in.  Ironman is quite a ride…I don’t care who you are.  I have a few very close friends racing for the first time, and I get just as excited for them, as I was last year for my own race.  Just seeing and being around people that you just KNOW are over-coming huge fears, over coming not being able to swim a year ago, not ever being on a road bike a year ago, or never even running a 5k before.  It is amazing to me to be on this journey with them.  Overcoming obstacles.  Putting yourselves out there.  It is exhilarating!  I absolutely cannot wait to see them along the course, make posters for them on the run, and see them cross that finish line.  WOW!!  What an accomplishment.  Seeing it from this view, and not a racer is amazing!

I am volunteering for Saturday bike check in.  Seeing athletes bringing in their bike, stetting them up, watching the quiet nerves, excitement, and adrenaline as they walk into transition with their bags and set up what they will use for race day.  Last year, just getting into transition made my stomach flip-flop!  I practiced running from the changing tents to my bike, counted the rows, knew what tree to sight off of in my line up, ran it several times. 

I am in the kayak in the water for the swim.  I am sure I will not see anyone I know, but every one of them, I will know….IM swimmers.  Churning and tearing through that water.  It will be an amazing vantage point..

Then catching.  Seeing these friends and athletes cross the finish!  Exhausted and exhilarated!  It’s going to be an amazing day!

My next race coming up, Fueled by Fine Wine ½ marathon in Dundee outside of Portland Oregon.  Ran this last year and going again with a whole entourage of girls.  One BIG girls trip to run and eat and laugh and drink wine!  What more could a girl want?  I cannot wait!

I started my Asylum (Insanity) camp yesterday.  I am going to try and chart my progress.  We weighed in, took measurements, did body fat and did our first day of assessment yesterday.  GULP!  That was tough!  It’s amazing, you can be in great shape and as soon as you add in new things, you seem to be completely out of shape.  I am a forward moving kind of girl.  Swim forward, bike forward, and run, run, run forward (ok, and sometimes sideways ;) all of this jumping and on my hands and feet bear crawling is all new to me.  I sweat, I moan, I want to lay down and cry, and I dislike (not really) our coach because he laughs at the torture he brings us.  But in 8 weeks, I will have a big happy smile on my face, and a rockin’ BOD!!

~~Keep ya posted!

To my IM peeps, YOU guys are utterly amazing.  Your training is almost done, and you have done it well.  You are ready.  You are confident. You are fast.  You are rock stars. You are strong.  You are competent. You are an inspiration to EVERYONE around you.  You are going to hurt, and be tired, and sweat and cry, but you will be an Ironman on June 26^th!!!!! Woot Woot!!

~See ya at that finish line!