Blog Interrupted ...

So I’ve been trying to come up with a clever and redeeming way to give my first Triathlon Race Report of the season - the Keuka Lake Tri (way down on page 6, #195)– an intermediate distance event and my longest ever. The race didn’t go anything like I’d imagined and other than the heat we all suffered, I was having a hard time trying to justify and explain my poor showing. There was humor in my swim placement – putting me as 232nd but then only listing 225 swimmers – mathematically unlikely, but seemed about right to me (they didn’t list the DNF’s).

And after the swim things went from bad to worse, so I’ve been procrastinating. I didn’t want to make excuses for my poor showing and had a feeling my ‘career’ in Triathlon may be a short one. It was discouraging to me that after 9 months of diligent training and coaching I’d faired little better overall than my very first tri, the sprint distance in this same event, exactly one year ago.

So cue the coach – my Cadence Coach, Ryan Oelkers, had a different perspective on my race and managed to twist it around enough until some positive things started squeezing out – including having dealt with the heat and conquered the mental struggle of a poor race, but primarily he pointed to some realistic expectations of such a novice swimmer … so thanks for that Ryan.

Between his evaluation and pep talk, the great feedback & support I got from everyone at Cadence Philadelphia and then Kevin McKinnon’s Muskoka Tri Camp, and all the continuous encouragement and enthusiasm I get from everyone who knows about this contest in my everyday life; folks at my gym (the Buffalo Athletic Club), the Buffalo Tri club, the people at my local Weight Watchers meetings, my “Bruce” friends at E Street Canada, my cycling club (Niagara Frontier Bicycle Club) even my local bike shop (Handlebars) – and of course all my friends, family and coworkers (both past and present), I decided, with less than a week left in the contest, I had to get the word out and ask people to send in my name for the contest finale, Ironman Lake Placid.

Don’t get me wrong; I seriously considered sending out an email asking them all to vote for anyone BUT ME! But at the eleventh hour I guess I had just enough confidence from everyone to think I just maybe, just might be able to finish an Ironman event. And then ultimately decided, whether I knew I could finish or not, it would be way too chickenshit to have gone through all this and then not even try to be the one selected. And soliciting some votes surely didn’t mean I would be one of the ones selected.

So I sent out an email to about 50 friends and family 5 days before the deadline asking people to vote for me … I don’t know what exactly happened out there in cyberland – but you all have a huge hand in changing this girls life – pushing me so far out of any ‘comfort zone’ that I don’t even know if I still have one anymore – putting me in a position to do the improbable and you’ve helped me believe anything is possible … ‘Thank You’ doesn’t even begin to express my gratitude ….