Well, lets just say, I didn't quit.

Yes, I did it, I complete my first unofficial triathlon. There were about ten of us that did it. I was number 8 to the finish line.
The order of ladies in the picture goes, Stacey, Julie, Riley, ME!, Shelley, Patti, Hollie, Martha, and Jill. The picture was taken right before we started.


Okay, so here is how it all went down. We got to the reservoir and I was not happy. I think I freaked myself out about the swimming, which I should have because I am a terrible swimmer...and by terrible, I mean embarrassingly bad!!!!...and by embarrassingly bad, I mean I was out of the water a good 8 or so minutes after everyone else. No really, it was sooo bad and.. my form, well let's not rehash things, please. Anyway, I got out of the water and I just lost my motivation. I decided that well, I am just going to relax and get as many chuckles out of this as I can...did I give up? Maybe, but not completely, I finished. We all have our bad days.



After I finished swimming, I put on my new cycling shoes. I have never worn them on a "real" bike for a long distance like the twelve miles I was about to do, apparently you should practice the whole clipping in and out more...we will get to the reason for that in a minute...then I put on my hat...oops wrong hat...then I put on my helmet.


I went up this hill about ready to clip in, when this sweet young man said, "Maybe you shouldn't try to do that up a hill". Oh yes, so I started to walk a little. Really, I didn't want to kill myself.



I guess I made up some time on the bike. I said, "Really?, no way!" Then I came up to my transition station, clipped out on the left. In my head the whole time I am thinking, "I got this, I got this...steady!" Then my brain shut off and I went blank and then I fell to the right. But, I jumped up and said, "I'm okay!" No that's not what I said, but I did laugh it off. Please, by then, who really cared. You can't cry...not because of pain, but of total embarrassment. Plus, you would just add to the embarrassment by crying, right? I can only take so much humiliation in one day. But what do you do when life gets you down?...just keep swimming...not literally, but like Dori...the fish...from Nemo...stay with me, people!!

So, I look okay here after falling off the bike, right? Gary goes..."hurry run!" I say, "but wait, I need a little something to drink". He says, "take it with you." I am thinking, "why? I don't care, I am just relaxing and having fun...I just wanna sit here and drink my water, I will run when I feeeel like it." But, I listen to reason, which is usually Gary, then I run with my bottle of water... go me! I run, I take it easy, about half way into the run, I see the porta potty and think, "oh man, I could really use that!" Then I see the turn around point. I think, "Should I stop now or go and turn around and stop?" Uhm, I decide to stop now, why not, get it over with. I go to the turn around point, and that nice young man who told me not to kill myself by trying to clip in on my bike up a hill is there (he really is a nice kid, I am not being sarcastic. It sounds like I am, but really I am not.) He poured some water on my hands for me, gave me a drink, told me I was doing a great job and sent me on my way.

And guess what...I finished. I did it. Maybe I didn't do it the way I expected and things didn't go as planned. So instead of quitting I just made it fun. And boy, did I have fun! Why do we have to care what place we are in or who is better than us? huh? Tell me. I do think I was a little bummed that I didn't give it my all, no, that's not true, I was a lot bummed, but there is always next year.

You see, here is the thing, although it would be awesome to be the winner or be up near the top finishers, we don't have to be. We just have to finish. (P.S. This is a pep talk for all you people who don't want to do this because they think they will be last or not very good...hello! If I can embarrass myself, then you can too. Do it for me!) It's like life...sometimes things don't go as planned, but we keep going until we hit the finish line. And really a lot of the time, the details on how we got there don't matter all that much, but we got there. And I am proud of that. I told one of the ladies at church, that she did an awesome job and she said, "thanks, so did you." I said, "Well, I had some issues." And she said, "But, you overcame them." And I said, "yes, I guess I did!" So, here's to next year and maybe a couple of swimming lessons!!!!! Here! Here!

Afterward we hit the water, the kids didn't bring their swimsuits and were sad, so we said, "just jump in" and jump in they did. Lucy was dying to get in that water.



This is, of course, me and my good friend, Julie, she is cool. She did this thing with a nursing baby and was awesome! Amazing, I say!

Jack showed off his muscles.

John showed off his muscles.
Isabel and Mckenzie just plain having fun. Mckenzie wanted to turn that place into a nude beach, but her mom wouldn't let her.

...and a bunch of crazy boys and Isabel chasing a crawdad, a ginormous crawdad.

Well, I think my favorite part about that day was having Hollie come and do it with me. Hollie is all laid back and all about good times. She didn't even train a lot and she did a great job. She beat me out of the water by 10 minutes or more. That was awesome. We had a good time trying on our outfits the night before, getting our gear ready, riding around the cul-de-sac on our bikes in a lightening storm and having some good laughs. Good times!

Thanks Hollie, for doing this with me...you ROCK!! We are official triathletes now, baby!