3:31 Finish Time

...the morning after

Ok, so its really not the morning after. I guess that this should be a long emotional blog about the event, but I'm afraid that I don't think I can deliver that. I finished. Molly finished. It was such an amazing experience that I know I can't put it all into words. It was bigger and more grand that I could have imagined.

Competing in my Team In Training tri-suit changed how people reacted to me on the course, both spectators and other racers. I was there because I had raised money for LLS and that I was a part of an amazing team. Jay, the person I raced in honor of, was there at the finish line. Everyone was yelling my name hugging me and telling me how great I did. But then there was Jay. He hugged me and couldn't let go. For the rest of my life, the one thing that I will remember about that race was that Jay told me I was his hero.

I want to thank everyone who stood behind me throughout this entire process. Pete, you proved to me that I could do anything and that I was stronger that I thought I was. You never stopped believing that I would kick ass, and I did. Mom - no mother could be more proud. Period. Dad, thanks for being the kind of dad that thinks his daughter can move mountains... because I just did. All of my friends and family that asked me how I was doing, what I was doing and why I was doing it. And my Molly, I love you more than peanut butter and jelly on toasted bread. You make me a better person just by knowing you. Thank you for letting me be a part of this experience with you. Once again, you've been a part of something that changed my life.

I'm going to leave it at that. For those of you who want to hear more, feel free to ask. In the end, it was worth it.

Ready or Not, Here I Come!!

I think this will be my last entry before the race. I hope that everyone has enjoyed reading this blog as much as I've enjoyed writing it. This journey has not just been about me and training for a triathlon, but also about raising money and finding a cure for blood cancers. Cancer sucks. Its a dirty word. Worse than shit, ass, f*ck, bastard, bitch, damn, worse than any of those words. Cancer is a bad word and someday it will be a part of our history, not a part of our daily lives.

Maggie and Jay arrived safely last night. Jay has been living with non-Hodgkin Lymphoma for over three years now. He has gone without any treatment for that entire time. He will continue to go without treatment until absolutely necessary. I've never met anyone more educated about their cancer than Jay... well maybe Molly. But what amazes me is his attitude. He's not angry or spiteful. He doesn't just have cancer in one little area of his body - this cancer is everywhere and yet he looks healthier than 90% of the people I see out walking around. He is positive and full of life. I admire him.

I'm racing on Saturday for everyone I know that has been touched by cancer. Jay Allen, Lynn Dziedzic, Bob Masson, Margaret Halstead, Sue King's friend, Erin Wilson and my Molly. When I'm tired and can swim anymore I'll think about how much it must suck to go through chemo. When my legs can't peddle anymore and I want to quite I'll think about all of the parents who have lost a child. When I'm running and my legs want to buckle, I'll keep going because I can... and that I am making a difference.

Surpassed $4k in Fundraising

You people are amazing. I cannot believe the amount of support and encouragement that I have from all of you. Financially and emotionally supporting and believing in me. This inspires me.

I got into work this morning and the very first person to pledge me, a co-worker, brought me flowers. She knew that I was twitchy and stressing out a bit. I even called my brother on my way in to work. Megan came by last night to help me bake a cake and listen to me babble about the event and all of the planning I still had to do. I've laid out all my gear, piece by piece so that I don't forget anything. Megan listened to me go on and on about what everything was for. She was so patient and knew that I needed to talk through everything. I'm not nervous. I'm anxious. Big difference. But I'm just as crazy as ever.

Lake Nokomis

It was the perfect night for our last big swim. The air was warm, the water was cool and we felt strong. We didn't swim as hard as we'd run or biked the last few days. There was no need to. I'm being extra gentle with my shoulder, and the swimming portion of the race is the least of my worries.

Tonight and tomorrow I'll go for a little run and then that's it. Lots of stretching and hydrating. Lots of deep breaths, and relaxing.

We have a TNT meeting tonight. We actually get the infamous spandex outfits tonight. Oh yeah. If I'm brave enough I'll try it on and post a picture... but there will be plenty of those from the race I'm sure. Purple and Teal are not really my colors, and with all of my tattoos, I might look more like a circus freak than an athlete. But I am proud of where I am right now. Ready to do this.

Girls Lost for Months in Woods. One Found Eating the Other's Sleeping Bag

This was our last weekend of training. The last weekend of long distances, long talks and reminiscing about the last five months - at least before the big race.

Saturday we decided to do our seven-mile run around Harriet and Calhoun. We met at the boat house at 8:30am. The sky was heavy with rain, but we were only getting a drizzle at this point. It was humid, but still early enough in the day that the air was cool. I waited for Molly and watched people run by on the paths. The longer I waited the more I began to realize that it was all women running by. For no apparent reason, all of the runners that morning seemed to be women. All shapes and sizes, some hauling ass - long legged crazy runners, older women who were clearly in better shape than me, larger women running with their friends, chatting away, happy as could be. It was kind of cool. But for some reason though I was crabby.

We started our run and I bitched for about the first three miles. Three miles of bitching, poor Molly. The air was getting thicker and thicker with humidity. We could see the clouds of bugs as we ran through them, we'd close our eyes and mouths tight, blah!

It was a hard run for me. My head wasn't in it and I was feeling anxiety about the race. What if I can't do this? What if I didn't train enough, I should have done more. But we finished the run, seven miles and I felt better. I talked through all the bullshit that was floating around in my brain and Molly listened. I needed that.

Molly was kind enough to figure out our Sunday ride. She found this great area north of the cities that looked wonderful, the Elm Creek Park Reserve. It sounded just magical. Our thought was that we would get a nice solid twenty-mile ride in. Sounds wonderful right? Well, it is wonderful if you actually LOOK at the map, which we did not do of course. We glanced at it. It looked pretty simple though. We parked off of Hayden Lake Road, we were going to follow the path south and back around the Reserve. We thought if the ride was too short, we could just do it again. Well, somewhere at the southeastern corner of the Reserve we screwed up - big time. We kept heading south, instead of looping back up north. Tooling along - talking, laughing. And then at some point we realized that we were definitely not in the Reserve anymore, still on bike paths, but defiantly somewhere else. And at this point we'd ridden twenty miles. We finally saw a Park Police car and asked for directions. Neither one of us could even remember the name of the damn park we were riding from, and of course our map was safely packed away in the car. The park-dude got out his map and showed us where we were. We both gasped and realized that we were way off course. Once we got our barrings and headed back.

"Follow the trails with the yellow dotted lines". Those seemed like easy instructions to follow, right? But what happens when you come to a fork in the road, yellow dotted lines stop and your not quite sure which way to go? We'd choose one path, realize it was the wrong one, turn around, realize that was wrong and turn around again. Sometimes at these intersections there would be a map, we'd see where we were and try to head north. It probably took us an hour to ride sixteen miles, which for us is pretty damn slow. At one point I was laughing so hard I almost fell off my bike. Neither one of us brought any Gus or snacks with us, we were both running out of water, and we were tired from being lost. We were lost. But at least we were together. I remember the moment we saw our parking lot. It was like finding a well of water in the desert. We both yelled our Hallelujahs and raced to the car.

We agreed that she and I are never allowed to go camping alone together. We'd be the people you would read about in the paper. "Girls Lost for Months in Woods. One Found Eating the Other's Sleeping Bag."

Counting Down the Days

There are so few days left until the race and yet I feel so far from it. I'm ready to give my body a break, a nice long break. Maybe I'll do yoga for a month, maybe I'll let myself go and eat a lot of cheeseburgers, maybe this will catapult me into a new direction of crazy athleticism. I've been grateful to share the experience of training with so many people through this blog, but it remains such a personal experience. When I'm most afraid, or have the most self-doubt, its still just mine. No matter how much I write about it, I'm still the one at the end of the day, who owns it. I'm ready not to own it anymore.

I'm proud of my fellow teammates, of Molly, and of course myself. These last couple of days will be simple. My focus will be to stay healthy, keep my body moving and warm, and tell myself that this has been one hell of a journey.