Tape Worm

(Note: These pictures have nothing to do with this post, but I think a post without pictures sometimes can get boring so I'm making an effort to put anything at all up that I have.. which isn't much, but I'm doing it anyway - so here you go! Enjoy the randomness of it all. Lastly, I would like to give a quick shout out to Kiet, for battling at IM Canda this past weekend.. he's such a trooper and someone I look up to immensely, if you haven't read his blog - you should, he's funny, smart, raises money for cancer in honor of his Mother, and has a sense of humor about all of this.. which heaven knows, we need)!

I'm pretty sure I have one. Gross.. maybe. Honest.. definitely. How the heck did I get so HUNGRY all the time.

Every morning the same thing occurs:

4:30am.. it's dark.. it's early. I'm not quite ready to open my eyes yet.. I check the clock.. yes, at least 30 more minutes of sleeping! Wait.. ahhh.. it hurts. What is that.. oh man.. my stomach is so empty.. (insert grumbling by stomach in a low but insistent grrrrrr...). Oh NO! Not you again.. seriously. I need to start keeping peanut butter and jelly sandwiches by my bed. This is ridiculous!

Is anyone else out there dealing with this phenomenon? I don't know about you, but I've about had it. They are starting to call me the human vacuum cleaner at the office. My husband said "you sure are looking skinny" this weekend. For heaven sake man - I'm eating the whole dang place! What do you want me to do!

20 hours or so of training will do that to you and darn it, I even missed a workout!

The good news is this week is a small decline in the total amount of hours so I'm not quite my usual mad self with trying to fit everything in. I'm using that time to strategize, plan for the future and prepare for the weeks ahead (aka buy wedding gifts, attempt to get organized - notice i said attempt, go to Pitt masters swimming for the first time).

If I could do ONE thing this week that would make me happy, it would be go to Pitt Masters. I've manged to switch gyms because the new place is newer, closer, and cheaper. However, it does NOT have any masters swimming. Knowing this, I thought it would FORCE me to make the 25ish minute drive to Pitt Masters which seems to be producing MASSIVE amounts of extremely talented triathlon swimmers - aka Chad, Beth etc. etc. They are the who's who of swimming these days. They have a coach on deck which I think can be helpful too. They start at 5:45am.. my previous gym - 6:00am. You wouldn't think 15 mins would make that much of a difference. Well folks, for this chick, it does. That combined with me not knowing exactly how long it takes to get down there etc.. has manged to bollux me up for two weeks now.

It's time. I'm out of free passes. If I do ONE thing this week - I have to MAKE THIS HAPPEN. I manged to miss Monday and Wed. So, it has to be Thursday. Thursday at 5:45am if I am not at Pitt Masters, you have permission to call me names and tell me I am going to swim 1:07 mins in an Ironman swim for the rest of my life.

This my friends, will not make me happy. So, that should do it.

I'm excited to make it happen, but sometimes, you just need a little kick in the pants. So go ahead, give it to me!! Tell me a trick to just buck up and make it happen - call me names - tell me I stink at swimming - because darn it - do I want to get better or NOT! This is part of the plan and has been since January this year.

No more talking.

Actions speak louder than words.

And my stomach at 4:30am speaks louder than either.

Not cool, not cool.

Every Day I'm Shufflin!

I can't believe I'm quoting a song called party rock anthem. Really Kim??! Yes, really. Well - it's catchy darn it! I find myself breaking into some little techno dance right in my car sometimes (when I have the energy, which is pretty rare these days!).

Did you ever wonder what motivates people? I sure do, all the time. For some people it's money, or power. For others it's improving the world or helping others. For still others its finding a peace about their life. What I've found from both coaching AND life is that people are very different in what provides that motivation. Of course, for many of us, it's putting better numbers on the board, making progress and occasionally, having a breakthrough training session and hopefully race.

What do you do in the dark time though. The times where you're barely balancing everything you have to do, with everything you want to do. When the world is demanding of your time and energy, but let's face it, there's only so much to go around right?!

I'm faced with this question all the time. Sometimes between work meeting that cut into my evenings, pool closings due to weather and even friend or family commitments I get down right disgruntled. I feel lost. I feel like I can't do it, that it's just to much. I try to take it day by day, but darn it, "how much more can I really fit in!!" I ask myself! Reading - PLEASE - no time. Watching TV - again.. laughter... not even close. Life is just too busy for our own good sometimes and the part we miss out on most - you guessed it - recovery.

As I was driving from my house to the airport to pick up business associates, after my 18 mile run yesterday sucking on a 20oz bottle filled with chocolate milk and shoving almonds in my mouth at mock two, I was thinking how nice it would have been to do an ice bath. How my legs were literally throbbing while I was sitting there in the car. There was JUST NO TIME. I could have got up at 4:00am to start, but I could only muster 5:30 because I felt a minimum of 7 hours sleep would get me through long day ahead. Sometimes, something - has got to give.

Ironman training will beat you down. It will wear you out physically and mentally. It will push the limits of what you and your family and friends consider acceptable. If you're like me, you'll miss workouts sometimes just because you'll try, but they just won't happen or sometimes, you'll just say _____ it just because you're tired of trying so hard and killing yourself.

That's when it comes back to the why. It's the same why as on race day, the same why you'll probably think 723,390 times over the course of 10+ hours as the sun beats down on you back and you pop salt tablets like they are candy.

For me, the why is complicated. It changes slightly from year to year, early season to late season. It's a combination of all of these different reasons that sum up how I feel about my life and all the time I spend putting into this ONE thing. It doesn't make it any easier, it just makes it bearable at times when I'm up yet again at dark o'clock, pulling countless yards in the pool or on my bike seat until my hiney / women parts actually feels like they will fall the freak off.

I don't even know if I could put the "why" into words if I tried.. the best I can do is say I believe I'm doing this, all of this, for a reason.... if that reason changes or just doesn't seem right anymore, I'll do something else. So all the "when are you going to __ insert - settle down, have kids, be more normal" you can put that in your pipe and lite it up!

For now, only God knows why I've seem to have been given the combination of glutton for punishment, extremely hard worker and a tieensy tiny bit of talent that has me totally in love with this sport and the people in it. The fact that I can do something I love AND help others like Ryan Ballou and our Ballou Skies team raise money, well, that pretty much sums it up for me at this time. Sometimes I'm gutting it out on the treadmill thinking about the finish of the ironman, and sometimes all the motivation I need is a big old steak dinner or ice cream after the workout is over!

Whatever your why is, figure it out, make peace with it, and keep it in mind when life really starts to bite you in the hiney. Sure, back out of a workout here or there.. it's good for you.. go shopping or spend time with the people you love instead. That's part of sport, that's normal, THAT my friends is a good thing.

If you're not enjoying it, and not motivated to do it - don't. There's no reason to keep pushing yourself to do something you're just not into. Sometimes we go through phases and we need a break. Go ahead, give yourself one. It's ok..

No matter what you love to do though.. keep on shufflin.. life sure is good, and even when it's bad.. because of the people that surround us with love and understanding.. it's still pretty darn good.

It's Not All About The Training

I spend a lot, and I mean a lot, of time swimming, biking and running. While I know it's not as much as other people, I do my best with the time that I have. It allows me to still balance some of the things in my life I hold most dear, like Kyle, my family, time with my friends and every once in awhile.. a little me time. I've been saying since the middle of filming "made" last month that I was going to go get a mani-pedi if I made it through all that craziness. Well, this chick STILL hasn't done it. Somehow you just roll right back into trying to fit in this workout and that, have dinner with this or that person and / or actually work / sleep / eat! All very important things. Hopefully, sometime soon, I'll slow down and take a little me time! In the mean time, it was a nice little Friday night for the Ballou Skies Kona crew. We had a photo shoot for this portion of our team and we are sending six, that's right six, people to Hawaii for the World Championships this year. If you didn't think Pittsburgh was a tri mecca before, maybe you should meet my dear friends. They are some of the hardest working / talented people I know. They are physically strong, and mentally, even stronger. The best part is.. they have a real heart for this cause and realize that they money we are raising actually is helping.

If you have just 2 minutes, watch this video. It is amazing what the power of just having this money for research can do to help prolong the lives of children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

Once we took our picture, it was time to investigate the newest that Duane, and the Engine House Winery, had to offer. I'm not sure if you knew this, but I love wine. I mean like I don't think I could live in a world where it didn't exsist. Or if I did, I would be sad, sad place!!!

Duane has his own urban winery. His grapes are flown in and if you're interested, it only costs about $10G's per barrel. You have have your own barrle, right there when you want it. When I'm with Duane, I'm in heaven.. there are malbecs and Pino's galore.. all for the tasting.

So even though it's all about the heart with Ballou Skies and DMD, wine is good for the heart too. Add in a little socialzing on a Friday evening and you have one happy Kim. Don't worry, I still got up at 6am on Saturday and rode my bike a long ways.

All training and no play just doesn't make me happy. Friday night was a nice reminder of how lucky we are to have a great group, raising money for something so very important that will definitely help the lives of others.

My pledge to myself is raise $200.00 between now and October 8th when I do the Ironman World Championships. If you would like to help, just to www.ballouskies.com and click on my name where it will take you to a page with my bio. You can use paypal right from there.

Does anyone else out there have trouble fitting in "me" time among all the things we have to do every day?? What do you do to just make it happen and finally allow yourself to shut off and do some things you enjoy??

A big thanks to Duane for taking our awesome shots for the magazine and for sharing some of your talent with us on a Friday evening! I was buzzed enough to buy a few expensive bottles!

Ironman Lake Placid - Finally, the Race Report (the real deal!)

Race morning you could just feel the energy. The town of Lake Placid really isn’t that big and fill it with an extra 7000-9000 people and you could really feel the bodies in motion. I could barely get in and out of transition in the morning due to the lines and backups. When we found out that morning there were no wetsuits allowed (which it had been rumored at the race meeting), I was not overly thrilled (especially considering my lack of swimming lately). The thought of this being my biggest mass start so far by about 1000-1200 people made me quiver a little (let alone without the safety blanket of a wetsuit). I have to admit, I was scared (like downright scared). However, we do things that scare us every day, so without a wetsuit (or skinsuit) I went. Many people chose to wear them anyway, but there would be no awards or Kona slots so I just didn’t see the point for me personally.

As we lined up I was so crowded I even started to slightly panic before we started. Jocelyn and treaded together and shared some last encouraging words before the gun. When it broke, it was by far the worst swim experience of my entire life. Can I just say,

Kicking

Pushing

Punching

Grabbing

Bodies on bodies, on bodies

Big mouthfuls of water

Pretty much the worst I could imagine it. For those first two minutes I ALMOST had a panic attack and quit the race. Really.. no joke. Finally, I made my way to the inside of the buoys and could start to actually resemble a swim stroke. I shiver just thinking about it. Obviously, I lined up in the wrong place or something. Poor Jocelyn got kicked in the stomach and puked in the water.. yep, that’s a bad swim. When we got close I would get outside for the turn buoys and I would actually dread seeing them coming because I knew it meant a fight. Finally, I started feeling better and fight I did. I hate to be like that, but I was getting killed out there. The beach run out I saw my time (33:XX) and it reinvigorated me a bit, not NEARLY as bad as I thought. I headed back into the second loop with a sense of purpose and even found clear water here or there. When I finally exited I was so dang happy to be out of that water I didn’t even care about my time or place! I made it! I survived!!!

I jumped over a few people on the ground going up the beach during their wetsuit stripping (and I heard one guy actually didn’t have anything on under his wetsuit once he was stripped – yikes dude – forget something??).

Out on the bike it was the perfect temp and maybe even a little chilly to start. I knew there were a series of hills at the beginning and I kept everything in check. My aero bottle started to come out and I caught it before it slipped out causing me or someone behind me to wreck. I held it with my hand, pulled over, and fixed it about 10 mins into the bike. I didn’t like it that I got passed by so many people, but hey, I needed water, and I knew later in the race I would be thankful if my hydration levels were high. The first bike loop was fun. I was controlled and enjoying the downhills (little scary), flats, fast sections, rollers, changing scenery and even the monster hills at the end coming into town. For the first time EVER on the bike, I peed. Yep, I did it. I knew it was a good sign. Coming into town there was a girl holding a sign that read “Smile if you peed yourself” and I gave her the biggest smile ever!! I even waved! She and her friends all cheered!! Honestly, it was a blast. I just rode within myself (heart rate, cadence, and stuck to my nutrition game plan). When I finally came into town the place blew up. Lots of people were cheering “Go GIRL” or “Way to go Lady”! I thought it was strange they would call out the fact that I was a women but I just smile and waved and moved on! I expected to be through the first loop in around 2 hrs 50- 3 hrs, but somehow my time only showed 2:42. I assessed everything – nutrition, check, heart rate , check, energy, check, cadence, double check. Yep, everything was fine – I let it go and continued on. The second loop I played some cat and mouse with a particular 47 year old women who was just not content to let me pass. Not sure what her deal was but I felt like saying “Hey, we’re not the same age group lady, it’s ok!” Finally, around mile 80 I put 5 hard minutes in and pushed past enough not be re-passed. Just over the hill Kyle and his Mom Deb / her boyfriend Robert came into view and I was SO happy to see them. While I was waving Kyle yelled “You’re in sixth place, 5^th place is only 1 minute up!” and I almost fell off my bike. Really?? Was I doing that well?? I knew I’d caught some girls but I guess I just didn’t realize. That was it.. I was on a mission.

For the rest of bike I put on a small press.. nothing crazy, just a little more than I would have had I not known anything. I could only hope he was right and that I still had some legs for the run. All of the sudden I realized I wanted it, and I wanted it bad. Two months ago I would have said my goal was top three amateurs, but I had let it go – until now. Now, it was go time. Now it was time to see what happened and actually race. I decided if my legs felt good on the run, I would do just that. I would try to race myself into the top three women.

The results say I came off the bike in 2^nd. I want you to know I did not. I came off in 3^rd and then was re-passed by the 4^th place girl out of T2. She was running strong.. bounding in fact and I had to pee. Yep, I had to pee bbbaaaddd. As we ran through town the cheers were deafening and I could hear Mary’s voice come out from the crowd. It just egged me on. I didn’t want to let this girl go.. we could use each other through the run and liked that thought of pushing each other to go faster and have a buddy. When I caught her about mile 3 I noticed she was in my age group and I could feel her body surge. She knew I was 30-34. I did something I don’t usually do, I talked to her.

“Hey, my names Kim, and I want you to know I already have my Kona spot, just FYI”

Her “Oh, I’m Lisa and THANK YOU for telling me!!”

We exchanged pleasantries about where we were from and told her not to stress, to run her race and let the girls come back to her. She nodded and I finally stopped to use the port-o-pot. Great job Lisa, you got that slot J

It was starting to get hot. Not St. Croix or Hawaii hot, but still hot. Hot enough I started pulling my tricks out of ice down the bra and under the hat. Water and gel kept me going and out onto River road I was feeling great. In fact, one guy told me I had better slow down. I took that as a good sign J Clicking away my legs felt spectacular – so spectacular that I started to wonder if the bottom might just drop out somewhere and I would DNF or something crazy. Cadence was high.. arms were pumping and I was holding right around 7:10-7:20…I wondered if it was too fast, checked everything.. nope, felt good.. let’s see what happens I told myself. What did I really have to lose.

I know I was in 3^rd because I SAW the other two girls going the other way on our loops. Both Suzy and Angela were running strong. We exchanged good jobs and there was only one thing to do, worry about my race, what I could do.. so that’s what I did.

The miles came and went. I passed Angela and we exchanged “good jobs / nice work”. I sang songs, thought about my life and about how thankful I was just to be enjoying the race. Jeremy passed me going the other way and looked strong. Jocelyn passed going the other way and we exchanged words. I was hoping she had a good day, as I’m selfish and wanted my friend in Kona with me. We looped up into town again and it brought me new life. Half way down, half to go.

In all honesty, I was working, and concentrating, but it just didn’t HURT like other races. Trust me, I know it sounds nuts, but it was very manageable. I went through a few low times, but for the most part, things didn’t really get “I want this over with” until mile 19 or so as we started to make our way up the HUGE hill into town. I just told myself – get to town, you can do anything once you get there. You will see your family, the crowd will CARRY you those last 2-3 miles. The hill hurt, as did the uphill through town.. Mary yelled, I gritted my teeth, but I never saw Suzy. It didn’t matter, I was giving it everything.. I heard the clock bell ring 5:00pm during mile 24-25 and I knew I could do this..dreams were coming true.. this very instant.

I passed a huge crowd yelling for Ballou Skies and I finally saw the stadium come into view. When I peeled off to turn right into the finish and run around the track it hit me. We’d had a day…my family, my friends, my coach, my team, my fellow bloggers.. we had a freakin day. I couldn’t hold it in.. the months on the trainer, the races earlier in the season that didn’t work out and made me doubt myself, Ryan Ballou, the time spent away from Kyle and my family, the early mornings, the prayers of everyone that day.. the tears… it was all coming together in one amazing beautiful mess of a thing and what came next was pure unadulterated joy.

I was so thankful.. I don’t know if I’ve ever been as thankful in a race as I was that day. Maybe not even Kona.

As soon as I crossed the line my legs gave out, but it didn’t matter. Every last drop was squeezed and nothing else mattered. Right there was my Mother in Law, Deb (who was a surprise! So glad that worked out), Kyle was there with the camera, Josh the MTV cameraman and Branden were there. It was surreal. In fact, at one point someone walked over and goes “who the heck is this chick anyway??” to Kyle with all the camera pointed on Branden and I! It was funny.. I didn’t care about anything really, except that my family was there and Branden got to see what a real ironman was about.. right before his very eyes.

Honestly, what does this teach us folks:

&l1. Most of go into ironman overcooked a bit.. including me.

&lt2. You have to trust yourself, your training and your coach (aka not compare yourself to others who might be doing more or this or that)

Kyle kept stammering about me being first and I repeated said “no, Suzy was in front of me, you just didn’t see her, she’s already done.” Finally, he looked up the results, and I owed him a beer. Suzy came by a few minutes later after finishing and said she was in the bathroom. So, I’m not sure what happened but I hope she was ok.. wonder if she has a blog.

Anyway, it was a great day and one I will not soon forget. I appreciate all the kind words, thoughts, facebook messages, and emails. Not one goes unnoticed or unappreciated. You guys are truly amazing and I hope I can support you one bit as much as you build me up and give me the strength to keep trying and keep pushing. The way I see it, we’re all in this together right J This crazy fun mess they call life.

A HUGE THANK YOU to my supporters:

Ballou Skies for allowing me to be part of this great team that does so much good for boys with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (PLEASE like them on Facebook if you only do ONE thing today!). Power bar for fueling me with delicious products that never fail me on race day. Newtons for helping me run with good form and hopefully, get speedier with time. Rudy Project for making some of the coolest looking glasses and helmets that also are light and fast. Top Gear for outfitting me with a bike that works and helping me learn how to fix it along the way. CycleOps for making trainers that allow me to ride inside (which in Pittsburgh is quite often). Blueseventy for supporting our Ballou Skies team. Finally, last but not least Infinit for crafting the drink mixes that keep GI issues at bay all Ironman long! You keep me in the game, faster, longer and stronger – I can’t thank you enough!

Ironman Lake Placid - Finally, the Race Report (the backstory)

My heart starts beating a little faster even thinking about Ironman Lake Placid. What a day, what an experience.

Humm.. how can I put it. Did you ever have one of those experiences that you truly felt was "meant to be"? Well, looking back IMLP was like that for me.

Let me first explain that I wasn't even supposed to be IN this race. Last year the day after the Ironman, I took a chance and got online at about 11:58 Monday morning and started trying to sign up online. I knew it was a long shot considering how many people actually travel TO lake placid, volenteer and then get first dibs on signing up the morning after the race on Sunday. I had two friends that actually were there in 2010 for this specific purpose (to sign up in person). My chances were slim, but I wanted to try anyway. When I had only a few triathlons to my name, somehow Beth and I decided that it was our destiny to do this race and signed up. Let me repeat that, we signed up for an Ironman after doing a sprint triathlon and maybe an Olympic (like one). At some point that spring, we had a heart to heart and thought better of it (aka backed out). Looking back, I might have done it, but it would have been ugly.

Only 200 people got into LP online in 2010 for the 2011 race. Amazingly enough, this chick was one of them. How do I know? Because the race director announced it was never supposed to even go online due to the number of people they had sign up on site. When I qualified for Kona, I questioned if I really should be doing the race at all. Would it hurt my chances in Hawaii? What if I didn’t recover? I’ve never done two Ironmans in one year?? Would I really want to train hard in the spring AND through the fall?? When push came to shove I just really wanted to do this race. For the atmosphere, for the stories I heard from my friends, for the scenery and the fact that we had SO many people from Pittsburgh headed up to New York. All of those reasons combined just made sense to me. I had to do it, there were too many yes’s and not enough no’s.

I didn’t mean to imply in the last blog that I hadn’t trained for IMLP. There were plenty of long trainer rides from January through March, a training trip to AZ in Feb, and some longish bike rides in May and June. I think I rode 6 hours twice during my prep and did a handful of 5:30 rides as well. It was July that really threw me. That was when MTV took over my life. I guess I just didn’t realize what me taking over as the coach was going to really require (nor did my co-workers, family or friends). After about one week of basically working my hiney off, I was starting to get the picture. If I could fit in one workout per day it was short and most of the time, it was really just me riding at a heart rate of 100 with Branden (the Made Coachee) for an hour or so.

At one point about two weeks in I called Coach Justin in a state of panic. I think my words were something like “Justin, I’ve stopped working out, not because I want to, but because I just can’t. I’m not sleeping, I’m barely eating and what I am eating is crap. I haven’t seen a pool in more than a week. WHAT SHOULD I DO!?” His instructions were simple, “stop stressing.” He explained that if I wanted to undo any chance I had of doing well, just keep doing what I was doing and let my cortisol levels shoot through the roof. That would do it. The next part surprised me. He said to just fit in one hard run, one hard bike and the longer stuff (as much I could do) on the weekend and I would be fine. REALLY?? That was it?? I thought! Yep, that was it. Even my pre-race talk was “well, neither of us really know what’s going to happen out there, so, have fun, don’t go crazy at the first part of any leg and enjoy it!”

Well folks. That’s exactly what I did. Three months ago I had big expectations and I had told both Kyle and my Coach of my intentions. As of a week before, I was sincerely hoping I could pull off a decent race and just finish happy and healthy. There was no pressure or anything.. just national television…no biggie.

After finally pulling off Branden getting into town, post conference calls and schedule planning it was finally time to get down to business. I really didn’t give the race much thought prior because I didn’t have time! It was a hustle right to the start line of filming and chance meetings with fellow 16 year old triathletes ;)

Thank heavens for Kyle and my Ballou Skies Teammates and friends (Jeremy, Jocelyn, Mark, Billy, Chris, Eric, Bruce and all the other family / supporters) or I would have been a total mess. Just enjoying the atmosphere of the area and being among so many people I knew was something I was really looking forward to prior to the race (and one of the reasons I kept it on the schedule).

More to come!! Stay tuned!

I literally "MADE" It!

We did it folks.. To those of you that know and have managed to help keep me sane.. Thank you, thank you, thank you.. I cannot thank you enough. To everyone else, sorry for the secrets but they required it happen this way. For the last month I have been filming an episode of MTV Made - "I WANT TO BE A TRIATHLETE" It has been one of the most fun, crazy, tiring, exciting, trying, exhausting experiences of my life. Some days I was filming for 12+ hours while still trying to get in workouts pre-ironman and not let my own clients and regular job work fall to the wayside. The point is.. we made it. Yesterday was a big day. Branden did his first ever triathlon (Pittsburgh Adventure Race - 2 mile kayak (for liability purposes), 20k bike and 5k run to finish 2nd in his age group with a time of 1 hr 50 mins (10 minutes ahead of his goal time). He dropped his chain twice, and still almost had first (only was down by 1 min 40 seconds to 1st place). He is only 16 years old, lives in Pittsburgh and when I met him four weeks ago, had pretty much done no physical activity for years. He lost over 10 pounds and he got to experience our Tri world in full by coming with my to Ironman Lake Placid to see his first ever triathlon.

I couldn't be more thankful to have had a chance to do this. It really did change my life (and the way I look at reality TV!). Josh (film crew), Branden and I were like one little family every day for the last month and we saw really good times and really tough times together. It was probably the hardest I have ever worked at anything non-triathlon related in my life. Kyle had to pick up HUGE amounts of slack when I stopped eating because I didn't have time to buy groceries etc. My friends, family & athletes were so understanding during this time.. and I couldn't have done it without them.

The episode will air in September and I promise to let you all know when it does.

In the mean time, I've got a house that looks like a bomb went off.. bills to pay and still a bit of filming today and tomorrow ("pick up shots") they call them. I actually found I love being on camera and it was a lot of fun.. the outtakes should be hillarious (think me singing, dancing, making faces and rapping.. yes, rapping).

In the middle of all of it, I was trying to train for this little race in Lake Placid that I had always wanted to do. Part of me wanted to cancel it all together.. but that's just not my style. Let the chips fall where they may, I decided to go despite all the missed training, lack of sleep and just general craziness of planning a schedule with TV producers and see what happened. I vowed to have fun all day, even when I was doubting if I might even finish pre-race. Once I let it all go.. it all seemed to come together and God Blessed me with a day I will never forget.

First Female Amateur (6th overall with the professional women), 1st female 30-34 and a new run PR of 3:17. I still can't believe it to this day :)

Needless tosay I'm beyond thankful for the last month.

I have no idea what lies in store next, but I'm so ready to find out.

More race report in the next post, but trust me when I say.. I think it might be a good one! Thank you Kyle, my Mom, Dad, Family, Friends and everyone else who supports me. You make me so happy and empower me to overcome those who try and hold me down with their negativity and jealousy (which they will never do by the way :)! I love my life, I love the people in my life and I will never stop striving to be the best version of myself.. never.. it's going to be a crazy ride.. so hold on tight my friends!

More to come and thanks for your patience. I know this month hasn't been easy.. but it's been so so very worth it!