Life is tough…

Life sure is tough sometimes. I recently lost my mom to a short battle of lung cancer and related complications. And I lost my father just a little over 5 months before that. Seriously. Such a bummer…

However, I am trying to remember all the happy times and good memories I had – and there were certainly a lot. We had a lot of fun, especially before I was an adult and got busy with ‘real life’ so to speak. When I was a kid we had so many great family gatherings. It is great to have family that really comes together in a crisis, that is for sure.

So, my sadness aside, I am in recovery week this training week. Going back a bit, over Memorial Day weekend I was up in Lake Placid, New York getting the feel for the town and learning where things were in anticipation of the next time I go there – for race weekend: Ironman USA, July 26, 2009!
Jeff and I arrived just in time for the team dinner on Friday. Then on Saturday I got to preview the run course. First things first…I needed breakfast to fuel my fun. The McDonald’s it turns out is two buildings over from our hotel. (My kids will LOVE that this summer.) I had pancakes and coffee for breakfast there. Then I drove over to the run start with teammates Carol and Pam. I successfully completed one loop of the two-loop marathon course! Afterwards I soaked my legs in the chilly Mirror Lake then had lunch with some teammates. After lunch those who wanted to preview the 10K downhill portion of the course met in the team hotel parking lot. I joined in the fun and went down the hill twice. The first time my max speed was 34.6 MPH; the second was 37.4! Wow!! That was probably the fastest I had gone…though I did feather my brakes I was certainly not super-scared or anything. Dinner that night was on our own. Though we did hit up the grocery store later with C&P for necessities…

On Sunday I got my coffee at the M and had a peanut butter and banana sandwich…thank goodness for the grocery store! I drove myself over to our start location and headed out in the rain(!) to preview the two-loop bike course, and ultimately rode 112 total miles. By the time I finished the ride I had dealt with rain, headwinds, and good old sun and heat. And hills. Did I mention there were hills? (ha-ha) Also, I completed the two-loop bike course, but not in two equal loops. See, I had to be different and on the first loop I missed the 6.5 mile out and back, meaning I did not go 13 of the 56 miles before I reached my original starting point. I realized this but at a point too late to turn around (and sometime after the point where my Garmin battery died!) to go back to pick it up. So, on my second loop of the course when I got to the out and back section I did it…TWICE! It was really hard making that decision and it hurt to do it, but I am oh-so-happy that I did. I was a huge accomplishment to go the entire distance, though not in the correct order. I had great support from some teammates and my coach, one teammate (TS) in particular, who really helped me along in the end, cheering me up the last of the hills. Wow – I did it! Then when I finished my coach had everybody at the pub cheer for me when I rolled back into the parking lot. That was exhilarating!
After the ride I again soaked my legs in the chilly Mirror Lake. I had had a bet with Lindsay to swim after our ride, but she had technical difficulties with her bike and swam earlier without me. That’s OK. Of course, it was later when I finished my ride so I just wanted to get back and clean up. I then wish I had planned to swim after the run the day before. Oh well, I will have my chance to swim in Mirror Lake in less than 53 days now….

Sadness…
After returning from Lake Placid on Monday, Memorial Day, the next day I flew out to New Hampshire to visit my ailing mom in the hospital. I visited Tuesday afternoon and again Tuesday evening till late. I slept in on Wednesday and then got a call from the hospital about visiting her. I headed over right away and sadly before I got there she had passed. It was so awful, but I know she was not in any pain and now is in a better place. I will miss her…

My training did get a bit derailed during the time I was in New England, but I returned on Saturday after having done my long run for the day up there. I went to the group bike on Sunday thinking I might go extra distance than was called for but decided I would just stick with my plan. I was tired from traveling and my emotions, and so far this recovery week all has been well. This weekend again I head to New England for the funeral and to pack up my mom’s place – it has to be vacated by June 11. I will do my best to run each day I am there, except for maybe the day of the funeral. I will then drive back home in time to get my bike out of the shop, where it went yesterday for a tune-up, in time for the Eagleman 70.3 on Sunday, June 14!! While I am gone I will miss swimming and riding, but I will do what I can. After Eagleman I should have no interruptions from my training, except maybe my son Andrew’s high school graduation on Monday, June 15! (Yay Andrew!!) I will probably take off early from work anyway and fit my run in before the ceremony.

And other good things...last night was the spring sports awards banquet at the high school. This will be the last for my older son. Kind of sad that is it almost all over for him. It was as always a fun night and nice to hear about all the other things that the kids/teams in the school do outside of the sports that my boys are in. The organizers recognize all the kids that participate in sports all three seasons each year. They give them cool t-shirts that say 3PEAT ATHLETE on them. I encouraged my senior to get his signed by the coaches for a cool thing to have to remember it all by. We'll see...