run this amazing day

On Friday afternoon, just like I scoped out the swim, Emily and I scoped out the bike course.   We rode out of town and went up and down and up the first few big hills, then turned around and came down and up and down and up and back into town.  I was pretty happy when I (finally) looked at the map of the bike course Saturday night and realized that we had managed to ride the biggest hills on the day, and they weren't that bad at all.  I've spent all spring hunting down the biggest mountains I can find, and I think it prepared me well.  These hills were a little long but not steep at all.  The good kind of climbing where you can spin at a not-horrendous cadence and keep your heart rate low and it doesn't take an hour to get to the top (I'm looking at you, Skyline Drive).  Not only that, it was absolutely gorgeous riding.  Being on the side of a highway was a little nerve-racking during the descents, but I knew on race day we would have more than 6 i...

For months, I've been reading race reports about the swim start at Coeur d'Alene.  Many people have called it the worst swim start out of all the various IM races they have done.  I tried to take it all with a grain of salt, but the part of the race that I was most worried about going into the weekend was the first 10-15 minutes of the swim.   On Friday morning, I met up with my fellow pony Emily to do the practice swim. We joined a largish group and someone counted us down so we could "practice" the running mass start from the beach.   As soon as I threw myself in the water, my open water swim panic attack showed up.  The water was cold - and I'm not complaining about the temperature, part of the reason I picked this race was because I race better in cooler temperatures - but no matter what anyone says, 56-58º plus an running beach start is a bit of a shock to your system.  But I've worked through this panic attack enough times to know how to handle ...

1. I'm not sure how to say this without sounding like a total asshole (for once, a time where I'm not trying to sound like a total asshole), so please bear with me.  We've been hit hard financially this year for quite a few reasons.  I've spent most of my life generally being a frugal miser, but after a tax mix-up led to a five-figure bill in April, just moments before losing my job, we've had to turn to our savings - and that's why they are there.  But it left us more unprepared than we normally would have been to support Graham's medical bills. When Amy and Liz asked me if they could ask for help for us, my intent was not to have his entire bill covered so I could go back to buying neon shoes, but rather to help us bridge the gap between what we were able to provide and the care that he needed.  I am happy to say with sincere gratitude and more than a little disbelief, that gap has been bridged .  This community has stepped in and considerably lightened ...

Graham came home Sunday. I don't know if I understand the distance between that sentence and the ones we heard from Dr. Geis late last Wednesday night, "I would like to do surgery now. I'm not sure he will make it until morning." But he did make it, through five surgeries, through a drug induced coma, through days when we could only see him through a cage, then with the door open, then in a room for five minutes, then in a room for thirty minutes. And the day before yesterday, we brought our dog home. But, not just our dog, your dog. See, neither of us had any question of whether or not we would try to save him. It's Graham. We made the call on the surgery that night. But once the credit cards were maxed out our only options were to take our half-healed puppy, still very much in danger, home to fight an unwinnable battle or allow our great friends, Liz and Amy, to ask the world for help. And you helped. You all helped. You very much helped in great d...