Remembrancy

Next year is my 20th high school reunion. While I’m 98% sure I will NOT be attending my reunion, there is a very small part of me that is curious to see what will happen.

I’m not planning on attending for one main reason: I hated high school. My family moved to Rawlins, Wyoming when I was in the sixth grade. When you move to a new town at this age, clicks have already been formed. The girls in middle school and high school were brutal to outsiders. Most of my friends in high school were either a year or two older or a year or two younger. I had a couple of friends who were in my class but mostly, I felt really abused by most of the people (especially the girls) who were in my grade.

In fact, I don’t think I’m the only one who felt that way. The Rawlins High School class of 1991’s ten year reunion was actually cancelled because there was not enough interest. My belief is that there was no interest because the two people planning this reunion were two of the meanest girls in the class.

I would not want to ever re-live my high school years again because they were so rough and I didn’t really establish my own identity until I left that town and went to college. Thankfully, I left the state to go to a college where I was the only one from my high school attending.

On my way to work the other day I heard a story on the radio about how the city of Nashville had received some grant money to tear down seventeen old buildings around town that are considered eyesores. I thought to myself, “Wow, they sure can tear them down a lot faster than they can build them up.” Can’t the same thing be said about hurtful words?

When my friend Leigh and I were training for our first marathon, she had some issues with her knees and our coach suggested we spend time in the pool (both aqua jogging and swimming as our cross-training). During this time, I also had some car problems and was spending a lot of time riding my bike around town. Because we were already running and I was already biking and we were now going to add swimming to the mix, I suggested we give a triathlon a try.

For me, the beauty of triathlon was that I could do two things I love (biking and swimming) and mix them with something I really dislike (running). Now, when I set my mind to try and do something new, I research it to death.

One day, when I was in the book store looking at all of the triathlon books, I came across a book called “Slow Fat Triathlete: Live Your Athletic Dreams in the Body You Have Now” by Jayne Williams. Let me tell you, I LOVE this book. It was so great to read a book that wasn’t written by some elite triathlete. This book was written by someone like me, someone who was overweight but didn’t let that stop her from getting out there and trying a triathlon. Williams told her story with a great sense of humor and I really related to her.

After reading this book, I was ready to give some triathlons a go. And I did. In the summer of 2007, I did a super sprint tri, a couple of sprint triathlons and attempted an Olympic distance triathlon (which I was not prepared for). In 2008, I started the season with Team in Training with another Olympic distance triathlon (which, thanks to a great coach, I was totally prepared for) and a few sprint distance triathlons. In 2009, I completed another really rough race. My first ever half Ironman triathlon (for those who don’t know what a half Ironman is: 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike ride, 13.1 mile run and yes, those are all completed back to back to back in the same day).

Triathletes are some of the greatest people. You are cheered along the whole race by others out there with you. If they see you are struggling, they are going to encourage you. We love this sport and we want to see it succeed and we want to watch it continue to grow.

I know without a shadow of a doubt that another half Ironman is in my future. Right now I’m working out a schedule for what races I will be attending in 2010. I love triathlon season and I am proud to say I am a triathlete. Even if I don’t win my age group, even if I am not at my ideal weight, even if I am the last one across the finish line, I AM A TRIATHLETE

Ok, I admit it, I don’t think I’ve ever actually had a runner’s high :). But I do try and run. In January 2007, I ran my first (and only) marathon.

I had attended a meeting in June 2006 with a group called “Team in Training (TNT).” I really liked what they were providing for a destination race. They would give you a coach, a training schedule, they paid for you hotel, race entry and airfare and they provided weekly group training sessions. In exchange for all of this, if you signed up with the group, you agreed to raise a set amount of money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The fundraising amount was a little scary (it was almost $4000) but TNT did have what they called recommitment where you reach the halfway point in your training and determine whether or not you are going to continue on to the race and continue with your fundraising or you could drop out. If you dropped out, 100% of what you had already raised would go to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

I learned several things while training for my first ever marathon. The first was that running is 80% mental. It was amazing to see how far I could continue to push my body when my mind was telling me I couldn’t continue. I think too often we let our mind dictate what is going to happen in our lives. Sometimes we have to block out what our head is telling us and listen to our bodies or our hearts.

Another thing I learned is that right now, I don’t ever want to run another marathon. Of course, I know there is a possibility that this could change but right now, I say no way. It’s funny because our coach told us that when we were done with our race, we would know right away whether or not we wanted to do it again. One of the girls I trained with (who is a great friend now) finished strong and when I saw her right after, she said, “I want to do that again!!” I said, “That was tough and I am not ready to commit to another one.”

Finally, I learned that it is a lot more fun to run in a race than it is to train for that race. When you are training for a marathon, you are commiting huge chunks of time during your week to training. The race does make the training worth it but it is a very big time commitment.

My actual race was a tough one. I live in Tennessee and the race we chose to go to was in Arizona. The temperature on race morning ended up being the coldest they had seen in sixteen years. It did warm up, though as the sun came out. Because I was not used to the elevation, I hit a wall about mile eleven and could not get my breathing under control anytime I was running. I ended up walking over half of the marathon and finished in 6:24:42.

Mom & Dad had come out for the race and my dad met me about mile 21 and kept me company for a little while which was very helpful. And I was happy to finish under the seven hour cutoff time for the race (we did have a couple of people on our TNT team who did not make the cutoff).

I am proud to be able to say that I have completed a marathon and every so often I think I would like to try and beat my finish time but then I think about all of the training that has to go into it. At that point, I decide to stick to half marathons and my favorite–triathlons (for more information on these, you’ll have to read my “S” post tomorrow).

I am a reader. I enjoy reading (I’m sure you couldn’t tell from my book reviews). My absolute favorite books to read are those written by Jane Austen. I love the manners, the dancing, the struggles and the end result. “Pride and Prejudice” is the one book I read at least once a year and “Persuasion” is my second favorite writing of Austen’s. I love that it takes almost eight years before the hero and heroine of this book get their happy ending because not everything in life goes as we plan.

Now, I am definitely a bigger fan of fiction than I am on non-fiction. I love the escape from the real world and the ability to live in someone else’s life for a little while. Some of my favorite authors are Jude Devearaux, Nora Roberts, James Patterson, John Grisham, Ted Dekker and Robert Ludlum. And I am always looking for other authors I enjoy reading. I have a tendency to find an author I like and then read through all of their books.

Quidditch was mentioned in my “Q” title but I have not yet read the “Harry Potter” series. I plan to get to it at some point but right now, with the popularity and the movies, I feel like I know too much about it. I would like to be surprised when I read it.

Who are your favorite authors? Any recommendations?

It’s official. We are into the NHL playoffs. There is something so great about playoff season in any sport but I think this is especially true in hockey.

Hockey teams play 82 regular season games (41 at home and 41 on the road). They have spent five months of the regular season trying to get one of the elusive playoff spots (top eight teams in each conference get a playoff spot). Once the team has secured their playoff spot, then it’s a waiting game to see who they will end up playing in the first round.

Once the playoffs start, it’s a best of seven series. So, my 7^th seed Nashville Predators are playing the 2^nd seed Chicago Blackhawks. They played the first game of the series on Friday night and what a game it was. The Predators pulled away with that win (in Chicago).

I knew that the Chicago Blackhawks were going to come in and play hard because they were going to be mad about losing that first game and home and they would not want to come to Nashville and play with no wins under their belts. And play hard they did, after a period and a half of no score, the Blackhawks finally put one in net and pulled ahead. Final Score in last night’s game was Nashville 0 Chicago 2.

Now, Nashville will welcome its team back with excitement for the next two playoff games (Tuesday and Thursday) and we root them to their first ever first round victory. We are ready for the team to make it to the second round!!

LET’S GO PREDATORS