Hello everyone! Our apologies for not posting for sooo long but it has really been a crazy time for us. We have literally been training 7 days a week and working 5 so its just been hectic. We are nearing the big day and are not entirely sure of how we feel about it. We are scared, intimidated, and (just a little) excited about the whole thing. We may be more excited for it to be over with than anything else. We're a bit tired of even talking about the Ironman to our friends and anyone we run into. It's just been a long time of doing the same thing all the time. As we near the 21st its becoming pretty hard to keep focus during our workouts.We have definitely wasted a few gym trips by getting completely distracted while we're there in any way we possibly can. Being in the pool provides the biggest opportunity for losing focus. I will proceed to really let you into our world now. We have literally gotten just so bored with doing laps that we have decided to have underwater adventures instead. Think back to being a wee one in the pool with your friends. If you had goggles you could go underwater and pretend to be explorers finding any little treasures and then making a mission out of picking up the treasures (mostly chewed gum) and putting them somewhere else like for instance in the little drain things. Picture Buddy and I swimming in a vacated pool in the gym underwater connected (my arms locked around his legs) as though we were a submarine picking up chewed gum and transporting it across the pool. We did that. More than once. We might be losing our sanity... or maybe we just know how to use our imaginations and have fun. Anyways, I don't know what you'll make of all that, but things like that have gotten us through this.
Our struggles (if you could call them that) have been not only in the water but on the bike as well. A couple weeks back, we went on the most discouraging bike ride I have ever experienced in my life. It was raining and we were aiming to ride 112 miles around the Issaquah/Lake Sammamish area. We had flat tires and our toes were freezing. It was during this bike ride that Buddy and I had a really unique interaction. While Buddy was fixing his flat tire in the rain right after I had completely fallen off my bike due to pedal difficulties he looked up at me and uttered a few words I cannot share here. He was dead serious with his brow down and his frustration completely out in the open. I had to seriously tell him to cheer up and let him know that everything would be alright. If you know Buddy at all, you know why this was noteworthy. He's the most positive person you'll ever meet but this bike ride was just terrible. Anyways, we laughed about that moment almost directly after it happened (that's just how we operate) and pressed on. Another couple of weird bike moments have occurred on the spinbikes at the gym. We have been completely in the zone riding alone in the gym with our headphones on then... we'd look at each other a certain way and just unclip our pedals in unison and leave because we simply just didn't want to be there pedaling anymore.
I actually don't have anything terrible to say about running right now. I thought I would but it's been okay. I don't really have shin splints anymore and the worst thing that happens is I get a bunch of blisters, which is the least of an aspiring Ironman's worries. Buddy has been really strong in everything and his swimming has gotten a lot better as well.
We're pretty much in the shape that we will be in on the 21st and that alone is pretty scary. Most of this post has been kind of negative but I wanted to capture these kinds of thoughts because I think thats what people do in blogs. Not much of this has been fun but I do get to spend a bunch of time with my best friends so that is a plus. It has been a lot of work but we've done pretty much the whole thing optimistically with huge smiles on our faces and we're thrilled to be doing it for such a good cause. We've been laughing off little things and big things this whole time. It has been a roller coaster and we really appreciate every single little post, comment, and donation that we've received this whole time. Those are the things that have kept us going and we couldn't have done this without them... having said that we haven't 'done this' yet... :-/
Check out Our IM in #'s in the notes section of our Facebook page ;)
