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2015-01-26 9:33 AM

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Subject: HAVE A MOTIVATING STORY? WIN YOUR RACE PAINTING!

Submit a motivating story of 2014 and have a chance to win a hand painting of your race photo by a professional artist.

HOW IT WORKS: For the rest of January and February, we will be accepting MOTIVATING STORIES of your triathlon - be it your first tri or one of many that happened in 2014 (even 2015 if you are in a warm place).  

HOW TO SUBMIT:  Just post your story HERE for users to read.  Hit the 'reply' button and post.  It wouldn't hurt to do some due diligence and have it proofread for spelling and grammar before posting.

CHOOSING A WINNER:  At the end of February I will work up a poll for USERS to vote on their favorite story.

THE PAINTING:

The story with the most votes will receive a 11 X 14 painting and matted but unframed ($170 value) and will also pay for shipping. We ask for 2-4 weeks to complete the painting after receiving your race picture or finisher picture of the selected entry. 

THE ARTIST:

Vivian Cooper is a professional artist who is married to a Triathlete, Elton Cooper (GODAWGS). A portion of the business that has received a lot of attention is the paintings of Triathletes.

You can view examples of the paintings in the below link… 

www.etsy.com/shop/ViviansART 





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2015-01-30 1:54 PM
in reply to: Ron


1

Subject: RE: HAVE A MOTIVATING STORY? WIN YOUR RACE PAINTING!
I have been doing sprint triathlons for five years now. I found the training hard and fell off the wagon every year during the summer. Subsequently I would start off again in the new year. Last year was the same as I approached my first sprint in Carolina Beach in May. My brother, who is a runner and was a state swimmer, came to visit us in Carolina Beach. We had a few and I talked him into doing the sprint with me. We rented a cyclocross bike for him and I let him borrow some gear. He ended up beating me and he got the bug. He got the bug so bad that he signed up for an Ironman! One year after our first sprint. Somehow he convinced me to do it too (had more than a few). We decided that we would have Christmas together and do the Half Ironman in Naples FL in January 2015. He did great finishing in 4:45 min. I wasn't as fast and had to dig deep and my brother came back to finish the last quarter mile with me. Attached is a picture of me crossing the finish line right at 7 hours and him to my left running along and cheering me on. He helped me break through the rut and we are on to training for the Ironman. Subsequently, I did not stay for the awards and found out I came in third in the Master Clysdale division! He and I have never been closer and this is my favorite picture taken by my wife.



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2015-01-30 3:19 PM
in reply to: Ron

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Subject: RE: HAVE A MOTIVATING STORY? WIN YOUR RACE PAINTING!
Here's my post-race report I wrote after completing my first Ironman in memory of my kid sister, Sandra, who passed away from a cancer caused by a neurofibromatosis-related tumor. I hope you find something to inspire you here!
-Mark

Race Report, Ironman France
My victory laps were cut short this week when all of our luggage, including my finisher's medal and bottle of champagne, was stolen right out of the car, parked for two hours behind a Russian cathedral in Nice. After filing a report with the police and informing the good people at the US Consulate, we decided to still continue on to a hotel my dad had picked on the other side of France's Mediterranean coast, in Baynuls-sur-mer.

The week hasn't been as spirited as it should have been. I've lost my netbook, my clothes, and all of my Iron-gear, but my mom lost her Team Sandy hats, Heart of a Warrior shirts, and Sandra's favorite suitcase on which a friend had painted a portrait of Sandra's dog, Freddy. After commemorating Sandra with support for the Children's Tumor Foundation with the Ironman, we were going to do something together for the two-year anniversary of her death on July 2nd.

My parents came into town the night before the race, frazzled from a bad experience with their Portugese airline, which involved an overlong transfer in Lisbon. Having already checked in my bike and my transition bags, I was more than ready to show them around town quickly before heading to bed, as we had to get up for a 4 AM breakfast Sunday morning. I then tried my best to get a solid night's sleep, but I couldn't silence the thoughts racing through my head, or my parents' uncanny ability to recreate the final scene from Jurassic Park (t-rex vs velociraptors) with their snoring.

Swim
I got to the swim start only a few minutes before the race - just long enough to spot the buoys and understand the course without getting too much of a nervous build-up. I settle in with the 1h,10min crowd and we pile into the water at the sound of a gunshot.

Swimming with 2,499 other people is more like mud-wrestling than anything else. In rare moments, I was actually doing swimming strokes I recognized - mostly I was clawing my way forward in a sea of rubber bodies.

At one point, a lady decided to do a breast-stroke kick out of nowhere and hit me square in the nose. I thought I'd been bloodied, and could imagine the photos of me coming out of the water with streams of watery blood flowing down my face and chin, though that wasn't to be so. As ridiculous as this part of the race is, I really began to enjoy myself here and have some fun. I approached the end, and it occurred to me that this was the culmination of an entire winter of biking down to Prospect Park for 6 AM masters swim workouts and all the crazy open water events of the spring. It was almost sad, coming out of the Baie des Anges wearing my first wet-suit for what was to be the last time.

The Bike
My plan for the bike was to go out easy, take the big climbs at a steady but controllable pace and then hit the descents confidently, charging up the remaining smaller climbs.

The course is realllly hilly. By the time you get to the first substantial climbs, you're already looking over the edge of a cliff and wondering how you ever got that high. You realize that one wrong move on the bike can lead to the kind of crash you'd need to be air-lifted out of via helicopter. At this point I realized that my left pedal clip was worn down, or perhaps I'd gone overboard in cleaning and lubricating everything, because my bike shoe kept slipping out of the clip. Even minor disturbances, like a small bump in the road or gear shift change, threatened to cause the sort of destabilization that could easily lead to an accident. I clearly had something to keep my mind on now. Still, I was feeling pretty good until the middle of the longest climb.

Suddenly, I really need to take a --not a controllable, enjoyable, cowabunga poop, but a really urgent my--needs-to-vomit kind of deal.

At this point of the course, there is nothing to the side of the road save a cliff going down on one side and up on the other. This is when I start to panic and begin to pedal... harder. My mind races to the possible dietary culprits that could be making me feel this way, and in an act of gustatory free-association I settle on the delicious moules I had the night before and the rich, creamy sauce I kept dipping my fries in... To be fair, it could have been that Dannon Activia yogurt I had earlier that night. That stuff is strange.

Finally I spot a part of the road that has a steep downward cliff on one side and a mysterious ditch on the other. I drop my bike down and hop down into the ditch from rock to rock, my bike shoes making me sound like a mountain goat, perhaps about to give birth. I find a sewer pipe that goes under the road and I immediately drop trou-, my butt facing the tunnel and the sound of bicycles whizzing above my head.

I feel much better for the rest of the bike ride. I even catch up and pass the group I climbed with, descending faster than I ever would on a road with more traffic and really pushing the remaining climbs. My nutrition, sugar, and hydration levels feel good as I make the return to Nice.

The Run
With almost all of the athletes running in a 5 km-wide circle, I am reminded of the Jolly Caucus Race from Disney's Alice in Wonderland. After all that solitude and scenery, I'm back in this ridiculous mosh pit parade!

My parents catch me coming out and I feel strong, but the sun is still high and my stomach decides to complain even harder than before. Luckily for the spectators, there are some port-a-johns along the course.

I run into the first one I see. It's disgusting in there, already marked by the tracings of bowels that sit upon faster legs. Still I am able to have my little assplosion and continue running, though I realize after a while that this is not, actually, going to work.

All the jostling around is making it worse, and I start to walk. It's a while before the next toilet and guys are starting to puke openly, collapse, behind vans... seeing all this, I barely make it to the next port-a-john intact.

Sitting in that steaming hot container between four hellish-red plastic walls, I'm starting to really feel Doubt creep up on me. I notice the effects of heat exhaustion, and the smell is starting to knock me out a bit, even coming off as a bit sweet. If I'm not an Ironman, at least I can be a Rocketeer maybe? I've lost my ability to make sense, but my legs are feeling limber, and this port-a-john is ungodly, so I get out of there and start running again after walking through the next set of showers. Now I'm back in the rhythm of things.

For the beginning of the second loop, I meet up with my new friend Ben, a local artist watching the race, and I tell him about my previous -scapades as we run the 5-k loop out. This really helps get my mind off of things, and I end up picking up my pace a lot. On top of all this, my stomach is finally settled and even encourages me to take in the crackers along the course.

By the time I reach the fourth loop, my legs start to complain, and I begin to understand why I was supposed to consciously 'hold back' up until this point of the race: if I had pushed harder, my legs would have been shot. I take my sister's keychain out of my shoelaces and fondle it like a rosary, as I did for my first marathon in 2007. I do something I don't usually do - I ask her for help. Even though a finish well within the cut-off is within sight, I want to be smiling, feeling and fueling the energy she lived her life by -- and this is where I start to choke up and my chest feels a bit heavy from the emotion.

Out of nowhere I get this fantasy image of me, standing at the finish line and conducting the crowd in the song 'O what a beautiful mornin'," a song I sang at her CTF fundraiser two years ago. This keeps me going for a while, I smile more and the weight on my chest is lifted. I begin to realize the full impact of everything we did for her in her lifetime. We could never fully understand what she went through, any more than my parents could see the kind of sickness my body was in as I passed by with each lap. But they were still there: we were all there. And in these situations it's surprising how much those outside efforts to banish solitude and loneliness work.

I'm thinking about all these things and singing and beginning to get that swelling feeling of running towards the finish and passing by the walkers. I did it, and save for the -storm that was the first lap of the marathon, I did it running. I slap a lot of hands before the finish. It feels kinda awesome.

Post-race
I slowly, slowly make it out of the transition area with all my stuff. I take myself out of the bike check-out line several times just to ease my nausea and rest my legs. I meet my parents and we go down to the rocky beach, where I sit so the waves will continually wash and cool my legs. After almost 14 and a half hours of work, it feels niiiiice. My dad brings my gear down, and my mom brings some sandwiches for us to picnic with. Fireworks and all that, I lie on the rocks and take it all in.

Days later, this seems a distant memory. There's no evidence of the Ironman in our car except for the tri-tank-shaped sun-burn on my back and a place on my ankle where someone scratched me in the swim. We are all wearing clothes out of a French Walmart-equivalent and still, sometimes strongly, feel the loss of hard-earned sentimental items. We survive another loss, though minuscule to the loss we felt two years prior.

On July 2nd, we sit in the square in Céret and watch a girl and boy chase each other around some old trees and jazz musicians, quietly feeling the transparent weight of our luggage and past. I tell my parents about an e-mail I'd gotten from Sandra's friends, who are going out for ice cream in her memory.
2015-02-03 3:36 PM
in reply to: Ron


1

Subject: Fifty, Fit and Fabulous!!!
Women in their 50s should embrace their age and be empowered. Don't shy away from staying fit and setting athletic goals. Be it as simple as increasing your endurance on the bike, tackling a century ride or checking an event off your bucket list. I turned 51 last January and documented my journey to tackling that bucket list event.... a full distance AquaBike race. It's a 2.4 mile open water swim followed by 112 miles on the bike. I created a blog (FiftyFitFabulous.blogspot.com) to document my training for an event that has been on my bucket list for about 10 years.

Besides documenting my training, I had hoped the blog would inspire other 50 somethings...actually women of all ages, shapes and athletic ability to become empowered. Turning "I can't" into "YES, I can." You can't go through life doubting yourself or second guessing. You just need to go out and try. What's the worst that could happen? You tried and didn't succeed. But more than likely you will succeed and discover that you are stronger mentally and physically than you ever thought.

On August 24, 2014 I started my journey to check off a full distance AquaBike from my bucket list and did just that! But why couldn't I focus on the positives and continued to dwell on the fact my bike speed average was not what I hoped? Believe it or not I was embarrassed to post it on Strava the morning after. But realized, it is what it is. Riding 113 miles (after swimming 2.4 miles) in hills, wind and humidity, as well as NO drafting was an amazing feat and I should focus on the positives and learn from anything that didn't go right.

On Saturday morning before the race, we had to pick up our packets and rack our bikes in transition. It still wasn't a reality to me that I was finally going to accomplish what I've been training for since January. It did become a little more real when we were sitting through the mandatory pre-race meeting and they were going over the course, rules, etc.

After lunch we met two other friends at the park to set up our bikes in transition. Also to walk the area so you knew where to run in from the swim would be, the changing tent, bike out/in and run out. You always want to check this out before your race as it is mass confusion when you come out of the water. The last thing you want to do is spend precious time trying to find your bike. The lake for the swim portion was beautiful and calm with homes around the banks. For my swim it was two loops around the lake for the 2.4 miles.

It was about 330pm so we went to find our hotel, check in and get our stuff ready for race day. We planned to meet up for a pasta dinner to carbo load.

This was my first full distance race and they treat you like royalty. You get bags for the swim to the bike, bike to the run (if doing the run), special needs bags that are at the halfway point both on the bike and the run and finally a bag for all your dry clothes. They are all color coded and there's key included in your packet.

Bed time came at 9pm EST, which is 8pm Chicago time. Yep, I was tired but only slept about an hour. Of course you have all sorts of thoughts going through your head. Mine weren't negative chatter but crazy scenarios...flat tire on the bike, forgetting my bike shoes, etc.

Wake up call at 430am. Quick breakfast and drive in the dark to the parking lot about 2 miles from the race start. Then hop a bus with all my crap. Transition was already buzzing with people setting up their areas, dropping off special needs bags and applying Body Glide to every part of their bodies. Modesty goes out the window. We noticed that the athletes were on the older side. Not many 20 yr olds and a handful of 30 yr olds. But 99% of them were extremely fit and of course there goes me with my body issues. Ugh, will that ever stop? Also some amazing tri bikes. But Vermonster held her own.

It has been three years since my last Tri. I had forgotten what a great group these folks are. Always a kind word of encouragement both before the race and out on the course. I have found no other sport like that.

6:45am was a pre-race meeting at the beach as the sun was still coming up. The full tri and full aquabike folks went off at 7am with the half going off at 8am. The national anthem was sung and that got to me emotionally and then we were off. The swim went well. I hoped for 1:15-1:30. I actually was back on the beach in 1 hr 33 min. Then there's the run up the beach, a quick stop at the strippers. You lay down on the ground and they strip your wet suit off of you in lightning speed. A first for me but a great perk to have.

I crossed the mat and entered transition. For the full distance athletes we got a changing tent. Also a first for me...They yell your bib number up to the volunteers outside the tent and your swim to bike bag is there waiting for you. A volunteer is at your side helping you sort through the bag and get you dressed quickly. Like a personal butler. For you women who ever tried putting on a sports bra when you are wet can understand the tangled mess. So it was awesome to have someone there untangle me. The gal next to me was getting the same treatment. 10 minutes in transition...mani/pedi, apply some make up, blow dry my hair...NOT.

Walked my bike out of transition to the mount line and off I went for 112 mile ride...remember NO drafting. Well at mile 2 we hit a climb. 13.8% grade! Are you kidding me? I had read on their web site 1500 ft of climb total. The bike course was changed due to road construction, but something was very wrong. There was lots of climbing. 4300 ft to be exact!!! I knew I'd remember this hill because our bike course was two loops and I'd have to climb it again around mile 57. Lovely.

I had planned to average 17-18mph on the bike. Well that soon became history. For some reason it took 25 miles for me to catch my breath and get my legs feeling okay. They felt like cement and my quads and hamstrings were like rocks. Also all the climbing and head winds didn't help the “warm-up.” I was in pain, frustrated and about ready to pull over and cry. But you always learn to work through it. A DNF was not an option today. So I pushed through the pain and hyperventilation. By mile 30 my legs were coming back. But my avg was at 14.7mph at that point. Ugh. I decided, just do what I had in me that day and get through it....also try to enjoy the ride. It was a fairly pretty route but a number of 6, 10 and one 15% grade. Lots of rollers but you never seemed to get enough momentum to hit the top. But the great fans and volunteers along the way were high energy and very encouraging. Lots of cow bells. You can always use more cow bell (for you SNL fans you'll get that reference).

There were two turnarounds out on the bike course. The first for the 56 milers and then a second for us. It was weird as they sent us about a mile down this deserted road. I thought it was a joke. And of course it was a headwind. As you turned around and headed back out, riders coming in yelled..."Is there a tailwind?" I smiled and said "ABSOLUTELY."

Miles 30-56 went pretty fast. Unlike 1-30 went in slow motion. Finally we got 10 miles of a tail wind before the end of loop 1. At mile 54 I got to fly down at 38mph that damn hill I'd have to turn around and climb up again. At mile 56 there was a roundabout and at mile 60 our special needs bags were waiting. I had planned this to be my first stop on the bike...which it was. I grab some water, extra food (which I didn't need but wanted to err on the safe side), go to the bathroom and lube up again.

It was like Groundhog Day. The good news is you had ridden the course before. The bad news is you had ridden the course before. There were a few women and one guy we had been playing cat and mouse the whole ride. So had a little company but there were times you wondered if you had gone off course.

About mile 80 the ride stopped being fun again. I was really tired and got hot foot. So I stopped for a second on the side of the road trying to get feeling back in the bottom of my feet. There was no one around and a woman came running out of her house and asked if I was okay and if I needed her bathroom. I assured her I was fine and thanked her for being so kind to me.

At the last aid station they shouted to me "Only 4 more miles!!" What the hell are they talking about? My Garmin clearly showed 3 miles. The race distance was supposed to be 112 miles. Well, guess they decided to put a bonus mile in there. Not funny.

I got to the dismount line where a volunteer greeted me and said run with your bike over the finish line. I laughed and said "Run? I can't feel my feet." But the feeling quickly came back and I did my best to run in cycling cleats and claim my finisher’s medal, cold wash cloth (the best) and the chance to say I did it. Yipppeee I was done!!! Then another volunteer took my bike and racked it. I had been treated like a pro athlete all day with this kind of service. Then she offered me food...pizza, watermelon, etc. No way could I eat pizza. Give me a few hours. But the watermelon was perfect.
I need to reflect and congratulate myself and stop harping on the slow disappointing bike portion.

It was a great journey and I can check this off my bucket list. What's next? I don't know. One thing I do know is I'm NOT doing this race distance again. I would to half distance in a heartbeat.

I enjoyed the ride!
Sheri




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2015-02-16 3:18 PM
in reply to: Ron

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Subject: RE: HAVE A MOTIVATING STORY? WIN YOUR RACE PAINTING!

My journey started in 2006 when I saw my fiance do a sprint triathlon.  I had obligingly gotten up at o'dark:30 to help him get to the start and get set up.  As I watched the swimmers come out of the water, go through transitions, ride, and run, I thought to myself, "I could do that and I WANT to do that!!"  The next summer, he did two more but I still didn't do one because I was planning our wedding and getting ready to start grad school.  I put my plans on hold for 4 years while I went to grad school and got started in a new career.

Fast forward to June 2011.  I started training for a tri and was 10 days in.  My tailbone area was feeling really tight from riding the exercise bike at the gym.  I did a back bend over an exercise ball and immediately felt like something was wrong.  The next day I couldn't roll over, stand, walk, or sit without excruciating pain.  After several delays amounting to a couple of months, I finally got in to see a sports medicine doctor.  She prescribed PT, which I did with little success.  Meanwhile, the pain had led to an altered gait and was complicated by the fact that I worked in a call center where I was tethered to a phone 8 hours a day.  In the course of PT, I discovered that I had a torn labrum in my hip so I decided to have surgery to fix that in February 2012.  Recovery went well although the back pain still continued, making it hard to do much of anything.  At the end of September 2012, I slipped on the kitchen floor and immediately felt terrible pain in my repaired hip.  I put up with it for 6 months until my now-husband (who had had the same surgery) urged me to go back to my surgeon.  She gave me a steroid injection in my hip (most painful procedure EVER!!!).  That gave me 3 days of relief after 2 days of horrible pain.  I requested another MRI and discovered that I'd torn the labrum again.  I had hip surgery again in July 2012.

By November 2012, my hip was doing well but I was still unable to stand or walk for more than about 15 minutes.  I decided to go to the spine clinic to see what was going on.  I discovered that I had 2 herniated disks and a variety of other pathologies in my low back.  I had numerous procedures to try to alleviate the pain, from steroid injections to nerve blocks to even burning out the nerve endings in hopes that we could stop the pain.  Nothing worked.  I ultimately went to an orthopedic surgeon in December 2013 who told me I needed a fusion in my low back.  At that point, I had gone through 2.5 years of awful pain, been unable to do the things that bring me the most joy like gardening, hiking, and playing with my dogs, and was even unable to do housework or much of anything.  The idea of another year of that with no guarantee that it would be successful more than I could bear.  I was deeply depressed and felt totally unempowered and hopeless.  On January 9, 2014, I was seriously considering suicide as the only way to escape the pain.  I was serious enough that I asked my husband to lock up all the medications in the house, which he did without question.

Fortunately, I have a great mental health team (I have a history of major depression) and they immediately stepped up to support me and my husband was amazing.  Somehow, I got through the week.  That weekend, we took our dog to her canine chiropractor (yes, that really is a profession!), who told me about a chiropractor she went to.  She said that she'd been told she needed a fusion in her neck--which she didn't get--and that she wouldn't be walking without him.  Although I'd already been seeing a chiropractor, the relief I got from her services were temporary and it really felt like the treatment was stuck in a rut.  I decided to give this new chiropractor a try.  At the same time, I went back to PT.  She gave me 5 exercises to do every day and said I should start journaling about those, my cardio activity (which I wasn't able to do at that point), and how I was doing emotionally.  She also pointed out that stress can affect physical wellness.  Seriously?  You think I don't know that?!  She really didn't get the fact that I could barely drag myself out of bed, much less do all those exercises and journal.

My first appointment with him was January 21, 2014.  He specializes in rehab and works with a lot of athletes.  His philosophy is that if after 4-6 months, people didn't need to come, he'd done his job--very different from most chiropractors!  He looked at my MRI's and could tell that the musculature in my back was very atrophied.  He also understood my depression and lack of motivation much more than the PT did.   Despite my condition that day, he told me that he'd have me training for a tri within 3 months and would come to my first tri, then gave me 1 exercise to do 2 minutes/day, 6 days a week. 

In addition to doing adjustments, the chiro did acupuncture to get my back muscles firing right, did some active release and stretches, had me using kinesiotape, and gradually increased the number of exercises I was doing.  By the beginning of March (6 weeks later), I was run/walking, biking, or swimming 3 days a week and joined a BT mentoring group.  In April, I started training 6 days a week.  I started taking the stairs at work and was gradually able to do 13 flights of stairs 2x/day.  I did my first tri, a sprint, on August 17, 2014, and came in 13/24 in my age group. The fact that I peed all over myself during the run just made me laugh - I knew for sure then that I was truly a triathlete!

I feel like I've gotten my life back and am now so proud of my accomplishments.  I have every intention of continuing, with plans to do 2 sprints and an Olympic this summer.  When I turn 50 in 2019, I'm going to celebrate by doing the half Ironman in St. Croix.  My Road ID says, "You've survived worse," and it's true.  Every now and then, especially when my hip flares up, I get scared that I'll go back to that dark place.  Then I remember this past year and how much I've been able to do in just a few short months after such a long and difficult time.  I've come out of the depths of darkness and have truly begun to shine.

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RELATED ARTICLES
date : January 15, 2008
author : MLT1
comments : 4
The triathletes really inspired me. I watched them in awe as childlike thoughts went through my head like, "I want to do that!" But then reality set in. “Who are you kidding?