run this amazing day

I promise I do actually have things to say that aren't race reports, but I really want to get all my thoughts down on those before they slip into the fog of my ironman-training-brain (gak, how did ironman get so close, so soon?).  This one was a late add to the schedule, and the whole trip was much more about spending a girly weekend two close friends than the race itself.  I flew into Atlanta very late Thursday night and by the time I got in bed with my favorite snuggling  screaming  friend Julie, it was the wee hours of Friday morning.  We slept in and went out to breakfast and then I happened on a long course pool somewhere in northern GA on my way up to Chattanooga. For a lot of reasons, there's been a higher than normal level of stress in my life over the past month or so.  Just life, the ups and downs that everyone deals with, but this trip felt a bit like an escape from all of that.  Like I finally had time to exhale.  The pool was gorgeous, wide empty lanes and cool

There's a local series of races that happens on Tuesday nights here in Boulder, and the group that I coach with picks a few as team races, so I decided to jump in and race one.  I was still coming out of my 70.3 recovery so I wasn't quite sure what the expect out of the body, plus night races are always a bit of a gamble against the tummy.  The day had been sunny and warm but as we drove over to the reservoir, clouds started to blow in.  I got in a nice long warm-up with my friend Jen, we ran most of the out-and-back course which is a little hill up then a little hill down, out across the dams (dirt/rocks/gravel), then turn around and come back.  Pretty simple. I warmed up with my group of runners, stripped off my shirt and then it was time to go.  Like most people, I have a love/hate relationship with the 5K.  I love it because it's so short, just a blast of fire and then it's over, but I hate it because I think it's all the pain of ironman crammed into ~25 mi

In the week leading up to this race, a lot of people asked me what I wanted out of it, what my goals were, what I hoped to do.  And to all of them, I said essentially the same thing, I want to see what happens  and that was all   (except for when I said it in front of my masters coach and he made the face he makes when he wants to hold me underwater until I stop kicking and started spouting off crap about breathing count and effort and stroke and sighting).  Sometimes I would add something like,  no broken bones would be great!   But that was about it.  The week before a race, I try to steer clear of triathletes and twitter and anything else that is going to give me anxiety about the day.  Most of my time was spent sitting on my ass reading, working, napping with a little bit of lunging outside  every time the temperature went over 70º  to try and prepare my skin for scorching southern sunshine. I've read a lot of excellent books in the last two months, and the thoughts and quot

When I signed up for my first ironman three years ago, I wrote a blog post about how it takes a village for me to do most things.   I was one of those PITA tweeters who couldn't decide whether or not I was ready, I drove myself and everyone else around me crazy with indecision until I finally whipped out the credit card, filled out the form, and spent the next three days walking around, unblinking, saying WHAT DID I JUST DO.   And it took that whole village to get me through the first ironman .  Friends, coach, internet, parents, husband, puppies, I was often alone, but I was never stranded, I was never more than a phone call away from the support I needed to survive the hell I put my body through that summer, and I was grateful for every last bit of it when I got myself over the finish line in Idaho that June. Fast forward a year to last July.  As we were driving back from IMLP, I got an email from Hailey which prompted me to pick up the phone and call my friend Kebby.  You s