Robin's Birthday

Yesterday was Robin's Birthday! So to celebrate her birthday we planned to swim at 5:30 am and then run 10 miles (Ironman training plan). Since we all have kids in school, we swim at 5:30, go back home to take our kids to school, then meet back to run. But when we woke up, it was thundering and lightening. At 5:00 am, the four of us are all calling each other trying to figure out whether or not to go to the pool. Then the LOUD boom and lightening made the decision for us. Sooo....no 4500 yard swim. It's tough training for Ironman and missing workouts. With our busy lives, its hard to make up a workout. As I'm driving to the St. Marks Trailhead and its raining, not too hard but just enough, I'm thinking how cool is it that we are going to run in the rain on Robin's birthday? We love to run in the rain. But just as we began our run, the rain stopped and the sun came out. For all of you who are runners, you know that is the most miserable condition to run in...incredible humidity. We had a great 10 mile run especially considering the amount of training we put in this week. Off to shower then to Food Glorious Food to celebrate Robin's birthday (and mine). Robin's and my birthday are only one day apart. Imagine that!

Only two long swims this week. OUCH!!! I really need to swim as much as possible because that is my weakest of the three sports. But I'm hoping I'll be okay in the Ironman swim. I know I can swim the distance, I've done it twice before but I'm just SLOW. Karen swears she is going to paint the bottom of her foot orange (think construction cone) so I can draft off her in the swim. With over 2000 athletes in the water at the same time that's the only way she thinks we can stay together. Oh, and if she loses me she'll just stick that orange foot up in the air so I can see her.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBIN!!!!!!!!!

Mac Crutchfield

Today is the one year anniversary of Mac Crutchfield’s death. Mac was a 12 year old boy who died on August 23,2008 in a tragic accident. I am racing Ironman Florida (2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run) in memory of Mac while raising money money for the Mac Crutchfield Foundation. We are 75 days out from Ironman Florida – November 7, 2009. I have three great training partners – Karen, Michelle, and Robin. We are an incredible group of friends with a strong bond. We are moms, wives, and athletes. We balance our lives so that we still have quality family time while spending many hours together training. AND most of all…we have fun. I mean we really have fun. There is no other way to do it. You can’t spend hours and hours on the bike, hours running, and hours in the pool without having fun. Karen is the crazy one, she keeps us laughing ALWAYS. She has no filter, just says what she is thinking (and sometimes she shouldn’t). We laugh a lot which keeps us going in our training. Barbara is also one of our training partners although she is not doing Ironman this year. I mean she has only done like 9 Ironman races, not sure why she couldn’t do one more. She still runs with us.

This will be the third Ironman for Robin and me and the first Ironman for Karen and Michelle. I will be posting our daily training hours and many funny stories that come out of our training. And oh, we take pictures. Many pictures. Yes you can seriously train, have fun, and take pictures. We are not competitive with one another and only encourage each other. In every race we all hope we ALL do our best no matter who is the fastest or slowest. Robin, Karen, Michelle, Barbara and I have a unique friendship. We race for soulful reasons, not to win or be fast. We all have lots of great conversations with God on those six and seven hour training rides on our bike. We appreciate life.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose a child. Maggie and Charlie are Mac’s parents and Savannah is his sister. My heart aches for them. I wear a Mac temporary tattoo everyday of my training. Just so I know Mac is right there throughout those endless hours of training. But I don’t need the tattoo to know he is there, I can feel his presence. We always start our training before the sun rises and when I see the sunrise over the horizon, I know Mac is saying "good morning." We rode the Ironman bike course (112 miles) on Saturday while many, many people gathered at the Crutchfield home to celebrate Mac’s life. I know Mac was with us on that ride. We were strong, super strong and we have never been that fast. Thanks Mac!:)