Saddling up to ride again

Well, I did it-- I can't believe that I talked myself into it! OK, it actually wasn't that hard. I've signed up to do another one! This time in Arizona. Iron Man Arizona to be exact. The questions abound:

WHY? Seriously? One wasn't enough? Are you Crazy?

Perhaps. I think what surprises me the most is how short of a time went by before I was thinking about doing it again. . . Only 4 days. . . 4 days is all it took to forget the stress of training, the annoyance of having to fit in workouts around family obligations, to forget how much I hate swimming laps in the pool; to forget all of the people passing out on their bikes during the race; to forget how much it sucked to leave that fan in T2; to forget how long that marathon actually is.

So 4 days. . . and about 2 more months for me to not let myself talk me out of it. The clincher came watching a number of my friends cross the finish line at IM Arizona 2010. The kids and I watched for hours as people poured across the line. Finally, OkK 12 hours into it) Flick hobbled across the line-- she'd been running 7th in her age group through the second run split-- but then clearly something had happened. As she limped across the finish line, tears rolled down my face and my kids cheered. About 54 minutes later, Sedonia made it across the line. . . followed about 4 hours later by Jen and Mike. Total amount of time spent watching my friends get across the line? About 5 hours. . . It was then that I knew I was hooked and so the next morning I begged John for some money and signed up again. (now, John said that the jury is still out on whether I will actually be allowed to train for it-- but we will show him-- I've already even booked a hotel room. )

The first step-- replace my bike-- as some of you know, my old bike was stolen sometime at the end of September. My new bike is finally here . . . and is looking good after being built out and fit-- unfortunately, the weather is not going to help me out this weekend and I doubt she will get on the road. . . she also needs a name. . .

Thanks for reading-- I'll be getting back to writing, and training soon. Just wanted to keep you posted.

Paula