The Reward of it All

What a week!  This has been one of those weeks that I want to hold onto but also let go of.  Like a tide sweeping the shore; giving and taking.

Our son left and made his big move to Los Angeles, CA, which left me breathless and feeling like there was a hole in my chest.  I hold on to his excitement for this new adventure, his determination, the look in his eye knowing that something new is coming, and the elation of uncharted waters.  We are so proud and excited for him, but as parents, it's so bittersweet.  A friend of mine shared a story of when her kids starting leaving home; a dear friend of hers asked, "in raising your kids, what was your goal?"  All of us would respond, I'm sure.. that we want to raise, independent, well-adjusted, self-sufficient, kids, with goals, and dreams and extraordinary intensions.  That is how she answered.  That's exactly how I would answer….her friend then said, "that's exactly what you have done."  Such wise words, and something I have thought about for the past week.  My job <our job> is done….and this man is on his way to perusing life to the fullest.  This I'm holding on to.  And the letting go, well that's just what this week has been in it's entirety.  Letting go of a child, letting go of tears, letting go of feeling melancholy, letting go of some heartache…and letting God meet me right there.  I know as time passes that all of these feeling will be let go of…but maybe not.  I am quite sure as a parent, that there will always be that ache for your kids.  The hardest best thing I've ever done:  Parenting.

John 15:13

John 15:13

On an up-note…can I just raise a glass to my friends?  Texts, notes, messages, prayers, fun little "comfort packages" full of all things comfort (Meltz Extreme Grilled Cheese gift card,  dark chocolate covered fortune cookies <seriously these things ROCK> even a little hooch in the form of hot, cinnamon-y liquor) <LOL> cards, calls, emails, even a pj's and wine slumber party/sleepover.  I have been blessed beyond measure with such incredible friends.  They are so giving and thoughtful.  Just the essence of true, unadulterated friendship.  ~Greater love has no one than this...

I have also started "officially" into Ironman Boulder training.  It has been nice to have a plan and a focus, especially this week.  My body has felt great, but I have been tired.  I'm sure the upswing in training matched with my emotions has gotten the better of me.  I am excited about training, and even about being back in the pool! <surprise> It's been fun to feel my gills responding to the water and meeting friends for training again.  I know how this works and that I will be tired. I know that my body will most certainly rebel.  I know my mind will wash in all sorts of reasons why I shouldn't do this.  I will be cranky, and starving and exhausted.  But my heart just gushes a big, YES!  Yes, you can!  And that's exactly what keeps me going.

Seeing our son leave, with such great anticipation, reminded me of this: that although parenting, and moving, and Ironman, and <fill in the blank> are hard at times….the end result and the reward of it all is so much better.

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.

Remember your first time???

There truly is nothing like the first time you do something.  No matter what that something is.  The first time of anything is amazing, and monumental, and there is nothing like that feeling.

  The first time you walk (ok most of us don’t remember that) the first time you rode a bike without training wheels.  The first time you held hands with a boy, or girl.  Your first love. Your first kiss.  Wow, that was something to remember, right?  How about the first time behind the wheel of a car?

I have had so many firsts in my life it is crazy.  First broken heart.  First time to move away from home, and then REALLY leave home, as in leaving the state.  My first child to be born.  First time to have stitches. The first time I leapt out of an airplane, hoping to make it safely to the ground.  My first car, my first home to own. My first 5K, to my first marathon, my first Sprint Triathlon all the way to my first Ironman.

I am still coming off a great week, after placing 3^rd  ag, in the Race the River Tri last weekend, and have been enjoying more of my summer.  Working on relaxing, but just really trying to find a sense of balance still.  Maybe it was doing another Tri that helped out.  Even though 2 weeks after Ironman, I had done a ½ marathon.  I went into Race the River thinking it would be a fun day with my girlfriends, to really racing it, and feeling good, even after being out WAY to late the night before. (Thank you friends, and Big Head Todd)

I think my summer training and summer fun is coming into focus now.  I have my training that I am still doing.  Running, biking and swimming with “the crew” and having some great beach days, some paddle boarding, some wine and boat days.

I had another tri this weekend that I decided to back out of.  The Hayden View Tri, put on by a wonderful friend of mine. I was excited to race this race for the first time……BUT, what made me decide to not race was the fact that this tri, is my husband’s first triathlon.  The more I thought about racing, the more I thought about him, and all the years he has invested in me.  Going to races, loading my bike, airing my tires, packing my crap up, mixing my bottles.  He has gotten up so early, to go and support me.  This past year was no different, but way more intense, and there was a lot more for him to deal with.  The very LEAST I could do, would be to go to this race on Saturday, supporting him, and being his Sherpa.  It is HIS first.  His first time to put a swim, bike and run together in a race. The first time for him to run through transition, pulling on socks, shoes, helmet, sunglasses all crazed and expeditious.  His first time to cross the finish line as a triathlete!  How could I not give that to him? 

I am so excited for him.  And nervous for him.  And nervous for his nervousness!  I cannot wait to be the one to talk to him Friday night when he is getting all anxious about his race in the morning.  Get up with him early Saturday to make sure he can get some food in his belly, go through the “nervous stomach” routine, walk with him and wait at transition while he sets up, racks his bike, warms up, and dives, for the first time, into the water for a ½ mile swim, then a bike and run.  I get giddy just thinking about it.

I am proud of him for making it this far. 

I am excited for him to drink the Kool-Aide that all of our friends have been drinking and dive into multi-sport.

I am excited for his first time.

I know the day before Ironman.  Pro athlete, and just all around sweetie, Michael Lovato told me when I asked him for a piece of advice before the race, said, “Enjoy every second of the day.  Because it will go by faster that you think…and then you will finish, and there is NOTHING like the feeling of the first time.”  You can never get that feeling back.  And right he is. 

But there is also something to be said for watching and being present at someone’s first race.  I cannot wait for that first!!!

~Greg, you are going to do an amazing job Saturday.  Most of all, love the moment, and have fun…you have this…and there is going to be nothing like it…. ALL of us cannot wait to see you cross that finish-line!

~And to another friend of ours, out of state racing her first tri on Sunday.  Go out there with your girls and kick some a$$. You are going to ROCK,  JH!!!

Fifty-Six Miles in the Peloton

 I just love runners, and Triathletes.  There is a certain camaraderie that we all share.  This past Sunday I had the privilege of meeting up with 5 people whom I had never met in my life, and a few of my current training partners, for a 56-mile ride on the Ironman course here in CdA. 

 Along with the awesome Running Mom’s group that I belong to, I also belong to a similar one for Triathletes, namely Ironman Triathletes.  So through discussion boards on a website, we share our training, tricks, plans, nutrition advice, aches, pains, triumphs, goals, and dreams.  So this Sunday, some of us from the group got together for a training ride.  And it was awesome!   There ended up being 12 of us on the ride.  Some I knew, and some I didn’t.  Three from here in my hometown, one awesome woman from Oregon, a great guy from Canada, mixed in with the friends that I currently train with.  It was fun to ride, and get to know everyone.  The best thing, the majority of us, first time Ironman’s.  It was great to talk to them about training, about how nervous we are some days about taking on this huge race.  I found out I am not the only one that has broken down crying after a long training day/week, and thought to myself, “I just can’t do this.”  We talked about nutrition, and what is working for some and not for others.  It was amazing riding in this peloton of cyclist, feeling like we were racing the Tour de France.  Wheels buzzing, gears shifting. It was just an amazing day.  No one was overly competitive, although a few could have been and were AMAZINGLY fast cyclist, but were just out for the training and friendship.  We rode at all different levels, and I am sure that no one felt left out or left behind.  We talked about our fears of cycling, wet roads, drafting etc. As well as great rides and races that we have all done. We shared funny stories about Chamois Butt’r and my new obsession, Hammer Seat Saver, which I am ordering today, and I hear, is the bomb!! 

I will let you know. 

It’s funny, I wonder if all sports are like this? Is there that automatic connection that we feel?  Passing someone running or riding that you know looks like they are struggling....you KNOW that feeling, you FEEL it in your gut for them, and you give them a little nod, or a "great job!" knowing that every step they are taking might be agonizing.  Or passing someone that is having a great run/ride, and giving them the little wave to acknowledge they are looking good, and to keep it up, as well as to say "Hello."  I know in meeting these people, it was like we had known one another forever.  I feel the same way with my Running group.  I have only had the pleasure of meeting one of them so far, but it was the same thing…like we had known one another forever.  I used to find it funny, that you could meet people online, and really connect with them, but you can.  I have! I look forward to meeting more women from my Running group, and more of my Tri group.  I love that the simplest things like riding a bike or lacing up a pair of running shoes, can enable you to make wonderful, life-long friendships.  It’s great to have people that can relate to you in a way that so many others can’t.  They understand the triumphs and tragedies, the highs and lows, and are able to pump you up when needed, and empathize with you, even if it’s about saddle sores, and shin splints.