I felt so nervous the couple of weeks before the race.  In fact, I even had a triathlon nightmare one night where I ran from the swim to the transition area (which happened to be in some school hallway) and someone had taken my bike.  I was extremely distressed.  But there was a bike left in my area.  The problem was, it was a little kid’s bike.  Wanting to finish the race so badly, I hopped on and started pedaling my heart out…I’m talkin’ cadence of 200rpm…with a speed of 5mph.  I just started crying as disappointment and then embarrassment set in.  I was so glad to wake up from that.

I continued to have these visions of race-day-disasters.  It ranged from:

the reasonable : cramping, getting kicked, flat tire, having to go to the bathroom, or stopping at any point before finishing, etc.

to

the completely irrational : slowly drowning in the open water and no one seeing me, forgetting where my transition area is, wiping out and totaling my bike, forgetting to take my bike helmet off during the run,  not being able to finish, or worse yet, finishing last.

So, I was somewhat of a wreck coming into the race.

I had set sponsorship goals with the hopes of raising more money for our Tread on Trafficking Team as well as to motivate me in my last few weeks of training.  Family and close friends were offered different sponsorship options ranging from Goodwill sponsorship – donating if I just wear the skin-tight tri uniform and show up on race day, to Platinum sponsorship – if I make it to the podium (HAHA!).   There was that fear of not meeting any of them (-I had no Goodwill sponsors anyway)!  Most of them chose to be Gold sponsors where they would donate $100 if I made top 10 in my age group.  Last year’s time to beat was 1:12:14.  Highly unlikely considering my personal goal coming into the race was 1:20.

I am acquainted with competition, but the sports I participated in were totally different.  In tennis, you win some games and you lose some games, but there is always time to regroup before you win the match.  You can consult with your coach.  You have breaks and can drink as much as you like.  All of the other sports I competed in were similar in that respect.  I knew there would be none of that here.  I guess I just didn’t know how I would handle the non-stop intensity of a sprint tri.  In training, I had never done all three portions (swim, bike, run) consecutively so I really didn’t know what to expect.  And yet for some compelling reason, I just couldn’t get myself to accept that just finishing the tri would be satisfying enough. 

Perhaps my expectations were too high.  I felt some comfort in reminding myself that I gave birth to my third child only a year and a half ago.  But then again, that really wasn’t a good enough excuse.  After all, women in Thailand have been known to be working in rice patties during labor, squat under a tree to give birth, then pass the baby on to a nurse and go right back to working, right?  For me, this race could very well symbolize a sort of personal redemption – that after dedicating 6 years to incubating, nurturing, and feeding 3 boys, I had reclaimed my body and was able to successfully train it for this race.  Not only that, in just one race lasting less than an hour and a half, I could potentially earn over $300 in donations for an amazing organization.  I totally wanted to do this but wasn’t sure if I could.  The suspense was kind of killing me. 

The day before the race, I got my final pep talk and some motivational words of wisdom from Chris.  Hilariously enough, during the race, those “words” were actually useful.  Tennille made some killer pasta shells for supper so we could carb up.  It made me feel much better talking things over and being with her.  She just seemed so excited and I so wanted to feel the excitement without the self-inflicted pressure.  We packed and organized our bags and made sure everything we needed was in place.  We had a photo shoot of our gear (-thanks, David!) and then we wrote our final fundraiser note on Facebook.  Our Gatorades was in the fridge and our bikes were waiting in the garage.  We ended up talking and stayed up late…

I woke up early.  I grabbed my phone and it was 4am.  I went back to bed.  I jerked awake again and grabbed my phone.  It was 5am.  Then again at 5:30am.  Then again at 5:40am.  Then again at 5:59am.  I stayed awake for the minute and my alarm went off at 6am.  I looked over at Israel and woke him up saying it was time.  I walked to the bathroom and the door squeaked open.  (This was Tennille’s cue to wake up.)

Ready or not, it was race day, baby.

Our gear

Our cause
 

Towards the beginning of 2010, Israel found himself perusing the web and ended up at trifind.com.  He had recently decided he wanted to become a triathlete.  I’m not entirely sure what or who inspired him, but that’s what he had set his mind to.  On the bottom of the webpage, he saw a link for triathlon coaching.  Just out of curiosity he searched Michigan, and then the U.P.  To his surprise, there was a match:  Northwoods Endurance:  Personalized endurance coaching for all levels of triathletes. 

It caught his attention, but it wouldn’t have been enough for him to actually be interested.  Then, he read one of the perks being discounts on Xterra wetsuits.  Being the aspiring triathlete that he was, he had been looking into buying a wetsuit.  So, without consulting his wife, he decided to give Northwoods Endurance a call to see what he could arrange to get the discount, but not the coaching.  He met with Rick and Chris, two young guys that work and study at Tech, but are also level 1 certified USAT coaches.  This was just a side thing they had started.  Even though their coaching fees were low and affordable, it was much to my chagrin that Israel came back home with news that he was going to buy a brand new Xterra wetsuit for “dirt cheap” AND he now had a triathlete coach.  What in the world.  This was not something I was pleased to hear about.  Not only had Israel just blown hundreds of dollars on a bike and the gear, now he was going to blow a couple hundred more on a wetsuit AND he hired a coach.  The worst part of all was that Israel hadn’t even started any sort of regular exercise to back this hobby up!

After our wallets somewhat recovered from the initial blow and as time went on, I began to see how the best investment that Israel had made was working with Rick.  When he completed his first tri, the Hawk-I, I was so proud I had to hold back tears.  And it was truly inspiring to see how he went from barely being able to run a mile (and hating it), to eventually running a half-marathon.  It felt like he was really gaining too much for what he was paying for.

Towards the end of 2010, Israel came up to me one day after getting off the phone with David and said, “Judy, I want you to do the Hawk-I this year while I watch the boys and just support you.”  David had just told Israel that he decided not to race in the Hawk-I again this year so he could support Tennille as she did her first tri.  She wanted to do the Hawk-I.  So, thanks to the Shins, Israel was inspired to do the same for me.  The problem was that I had never said I wanted to do a triathlon. 

Israel had been persistently trying to get me into triathlons for some months now.  But I just couldn’t commit to it.  I was graciously given a bike by some good friends of ours and I trained for the Belle Isle Triathlon where I did the 12 mile bike portion.  But it was tough to find time to even train for that.  Right before the race started, I remember nursing Ty in my biking outfit and spandex and thinking to myself how ridiculous I must look.  It was super-fun, but I didn’t see it going anywhere at least at that time.

We invited Rick and Chris over for dinner.  Israel wanted me to start thinking about getting into triathlons.  My sister, Julie, was visiting us before she moved to Guam.  All I remember was how we told them stories about how we hauled hundreds of pounds of Lake Superior rocks on our backs for our low-budget landscaping job.  No interest in triathlons for me.  Not yet.

In January of this year, Ty was weaned.  Soon after, I went to Guam for two weeks to visit my sister.  We were super-active.  I played tennis, hiked, swam, scuba-dived, and skydived.  When I came back home, I was ready to commit.  I wanted a physical challenge and this seemed to be just the thing.  I decided I wanted to do the Hawk-I in June.  Israel was in full support.

We invited Rick and Chris over again.  I filled out the paper work and basically signed my life away.  Okay, not quite, but close.  Christopher Schwartz officially became my coach.  I purchased a 3 month membership to the SDC and my training began.  For 6 days a week, I was given work-outs.  Sundays were long runs.  Mondays and Fridays were on the bike.  Tuesdays and Thursdays, I was at the pool.  Wednesdays were tempo or interval runs.  The only time I had guaranteed to train was early in the morning before the boys woke up, so I would wake up at 6am and be at the SDC from 6:30-8am.  I pushed hard but limited myself to what I was assigned to do.  That provided the perfect balance for my training. 

As a member of Team Revolution, I had to think of a mission project to race for.  When the Bonellos and Justin Kim informed us about Tread on Trafficking and Love 146, the decision was easy.  This was it.  I would race to help put an end to child sex slavery and exploitation.  Tennille was on board too.  With this cause came motivation to train and to raise awareness about it.  Everything was falling into place.   

I must say that my coach was pretty awesome.  I began with hardly any experience in swimming and biking.  He patiently worked with me and answered too many of my ridiculous questions.  And I learned.  It was encouraging to see such apparent progress and marked improvement.  The journey to my first triathlon was sweet, but it was about to come to an end.  Sunday, June 5th, 2011 was right around the corner.

I was almost there.             

This will be a summer of training.  Initially, I was only planning on doing the Hawk I which is a sprint tri on June 5th down in Lansing, MI.  But then, thanks to my ambitious friends, Tennille and Kimmy, we will be racing as a relay team in the half-ironman distance triathlon, the Kuparisaari or the “Koop” as they call it, on August 14th.  Tennille will be swimming the 1.2 miles, Kimmy will be running the 13.1 miles, and I am responsible for riding the 56 miles on bike.  At this point, I’m not too worried about the sprint tri.  I’m just working on paring down my time so I can raise as much money as possible from my sponsors for Love 146.  The Koop bike ride is what worries me.

Today was my longest bike ride to date and it was tough.  The workout was entitled, “Long Ride – Hills!”.  I didn’t understand what that exclamation point was doing there until about 30 minutes into the ride when I turned right up Broemer.  It was then, as I was pumping up this road, rain-drenched and fighting to see through all of the droplets on my sunglasses, that I understood what Christopher Schwartz meant by that punctuation mark.  Unfortunately, there were plenty more “hills!” during that 1:45 ride.  Now, after 25.41 miles and some time for my body to respond to the abuse that happened a few hours ago, I’m super-fatigued and my legs feel like bricks.  If I take a nap, I’m afraid I won’t be able to get back up.  But it was one of those rare workouts that meant more to me than just exercise.

There have only been two times since I began training 10 weeks ago, where after I completed a workout, I surprised myself. I’m beginning to see how these moments are becoming benchmarks in my triathlon journey. Moments where I can look back to for encouragement when I can’t seem to get into the daily grind. The first time was just last week when I swam a 1000yd time trial.  I had never swam that distance non-stop before. I couldn’t believe I finished it in 18:50.  For me, that was such an amazing time.  Today was the second.  This ride today signified something special to me, not so much because I was pleased with my overall speed or cadence.  (I wasn’t at all!)  But because I couldn’t believe I had pushed and endured the entire ride.  I went to the top of every hill (-even Painesdale) and didn’t give myself any shortcuts or breaks.  I had won a mental battle against myself. 

Sometimes, it’s the workouts that kick your butt that make you realize you can do more. Sometimes, it’s the greatest challenges overcome that give you the unexpected encouragement to try even harder. So funny how that works. Well, today I raised up an ebenezer. I do hope there are many more to come.