Shoutout and Then Some...

Thanks to my latest donor Holly who donated in memory of her father. He lost his battle with multiple myeloma about a year and a half ago.

In spite of all my fears about the bike, swimming is proving to be my problem right now. I just can't seem to get motivated to get in the pool. I've said I was going to go yesterday and today and it didn't happen. I'll have plenty of time over the weekend to go and I just need to force myself to do it. I need to get in a couple 400ish meter swims just to be sure I can get the distance.

Tomorrow morning I'm going on my longest bike ride, well, ever. I got a wild hare up my ass and decided to hike up to Canton and ride in the Rose Pedal race. The course itself is a hair under 19 miles, but when elevation is taken into account, it goes up to 27. The course description appears innocuous enough. It's not dead flat but has "rolling hills". I'm not sure what exactly constitutes a rolling hill, but I need to gain my confidence on hills. I suspect it's a series of long, low hills rather than steep ones. This seems like the perfect opportunity because I won't be dealing with traffic. I refuse to let myself chicken out. I'm going to put to use something one of my dance teachers told me. She said if you don't challenge yourself, you never learn anything new. I'll never be confident on hills if I don't ride on hills. I'll never be confident in the swim if I'm not in the pool regularly. There's no other way to do it.

A funny story from this morning. As we were warming up in camp, one of the other ladies asked me how my training was going. I told her what I've said on here and she says "Oh, so you're doing an Ironman?". I laughed and told her I was flattered she thought I was capable of that. For those who aren't familiar, triathlons come in multiple distances. The Ironman distance is the longest with a 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run. My longest tri will be an Olympic distance with a 1500 m swim, 24 mile bike, and 6.2 mile run. The longest I'll probably ever attempt is a half Iron, but I may have to complete an Ironman just to say I did it. :P