Digging the Well: Mont Tremblant 2017

This past Spring I was teaching, coaching, training and of course, being a Mom (which actually is first on the list!) and continually asking my coach when I could do full distance race (140.6).  I would have weeks where I'd really nail all the training, then I'd have a couple where I barely managed to get in the pool or make my long ride happen.  Jesse (of QT2 Systems) said several times, "the well just isn't deep enough yet Kim.  I think you've forgotten just how deep you have to go to pull off the kind of Ironman you'd like to race!"  I would pout a bit, but in the end, I would accept that he was probably right and my four hour training rides and 1:45 long runs weren't going to cut it.

When summer came, I had great expectations that without teaching I would be living the sweet life with lots of time and energy to devote to training.  What happened was an onslaught of family requirements that meant Kyle and I had to pull together on a new level while raising Emma.  I have never been so scheduled or so efficient in order to make it all happen.  Sometimes, we didn't even pull it off, we just survived!  Meanwhile, training continued on with some fantastic weeks, some less than stellar.  We made it through just in time for me to travel to New Hampshire to hang out and train with good friend Molly for a week to put in the last of the big days required to race this distance.  It was amazing to live like a full time pro again.  We did all the pro things like napping for recovery, having ample time to cook nutritious meals and even having some fun time mixed in to sit on the boat and soak up some rays. While I missed Emma and Kyle terribly, I also realized that this was the part of my pro life that I had given up when we made the decision to start a family.

Lounging!  

I thought about those decisions a lot while I was training in the beautiful hills and swimming in the pristine Squam lake.  In the end, my life is 1000x richer because of this challenging, spunky new life that requires pretty much everything I have on a daily basis.  My triathlon career has been everything I hoped for and more, but Emma takes the cake on being my future.

YUM.. Dinner!

Hanging out on the boat!

As I head up to Tremblant today to do one of my last Ironmans, I know that if this is the end of my career, I'm ready.  Through all of the highs and lows, I've managed to build fitness that I never knew if I would get back to after being a Mom.  The fact that my body was willing to go on this journey with me, along with my family's support, is a HUGE Blessing and not to be taken for granted.  My goal on Sunday is to show my daughter the joy that can be felt from using your passion and drive to complete something that others sometimes think seems impossible.  There is only one guarantee about Sunday's race, and that is there will be the darkest places imaginable, but that I will still consider it a gift to be racing after everything we've surmounted just to arrive at the starting line.  Emma won't remember much about this past year, but I'll remember everything.  I'll tell her how her Mommy once biked on the trainer with her in her belly, read grad school books while breastfeeding, walk/ran 15 min miles to try to start back on her journey, rode her bike thousands of miles in preparation to be back on a pro starting line and did it all just to see what could happen when she put her heart and soul into something she loved to see her baby at the finish line.

I always said I didn't want to have any regrets, and I don't.  The well is deep.  When you see me out there on Sunday, know I'm drawing buckets from not just the miles I've put in, but from the friends and family who built me up and let me know that there is no such thing as failure.  Trust me, I've already won.

In the mean time Emma had a first Birthday!  Yay!

Best of luck to everyone competing and thanks to my sponsors Ultragrain, Quintana Roo, Coeur Sports, Rudy Project, QT2 Systems, ROKA, NormaTec Recovery, Field Work Nutrition Primo Smoothie Meal and Brooks.