Appreciation.... Motivation...Inspiration

I finished my race! sigh... I finished it, but it was just the first step on my journey.  I'll get to that later in the post though.  First and foremost I want to say a huge and resounding THANK YOU!!!!  To everyone that supported me and cheered me on, and sent me special little surprises in the mail.  (you know who you are)  I can't beleive how many people are behind me on this goal.  Unbelievable, you know... you don't need to be an Olympic athlete to feel the love and support, I felt it!  Folks I didn't even know were cheering me on at the race, me (not the person behind me) but ME!  How cool is that, strangers cheering me on!  And all of you who sent me support via fb or in person, I used it, it drove me!  I was racing for all of you! 

Tonight I was chatting with a friend about motivation to exercise (she is pregnant and still given'er at the gym - can I hear a "woot woot"), and I think neither one of us actually wanted to come out and say it but we do it to inspire and we use that positive energy for ourselves, to drive us!  Does that make sense? At first when I was working out the idea of motivating others, to motivate myself, I thought it made me sound full of myself, or full of pride... But that's not the case.  I am fueling myself on the positive energy that I put out! And others are also benefiting.  Either way it's a win-win.  I keep going full tilt knowing that people are looking to me as an inspiration, but it's not stressful because I can go full tilt knowing everyone has my back with their love and support.  Sheesh this is confusing, does it make sense to you?

 Here is an example of when I was pregnant how I was driven by everyone's compliments: complete strangers would come up to me and give me sincere props for working out at the gym being massively pregnant, this made me feel good, so I would go back the next time.  (I'm kind of an endorphin junky as well but anyway...)  My close friends would "oohh and aaahh" at my strength and stamina, so I kind of used that as fuel/positive energy to get me through the tough stuff, knowing that I was also setting an example that "if I can do it, so can you!" But it's the feedback that felt really good, because fellow gym-bums would tell me how I inspired them to do more.  Probably some type of positive feedback loop stuff (out of my realm of phych knowledge).  

So back to appreciation, I want to show you a picture of what I keep in my kitchen in my most used cupboard (spices and tea)...  These are little messages of inspiration that friends and family have given me over the last little while.  (Not included are obviously all the emails and msg from family and friends),,, I should print them though!

Now onto the race.  I did amazing (I'm waiting for the pictures from the race photographers) but here are a few silly shots from the transition area.

I didn't wear the purple MIM (Mommy's in Motion) purple shirt while racing. I just had my tri suit on. I opted for the shorter race, partially because I'm a wimp and was too scared to attempt the unknown with a bigger than usual sprint distance (it was like 3/4 of the Olympic distance), and I wanted to test the waters out on a race that I knew I could accomplish physically.  I estimated that I would place something like 7th, based on previous results and my approximate times.  But I did much better than that.  I placed 4th out of a huge age group (women 30-39) 72 people! I placed 31st over all out of like 300.  My swim time was a bit slower than I anticipated (because I didn't know they count the run out of the water to the transition as part of the overall swim time), but my bike time was faster than I had estimated, and the run was in fact a bit faster than I had estimated.  I figured I would do a 6min swim/20min bike/15min run/and I figured about 4 minutes in transitions. So my estimation was 45minutes to do the super sprint triathlon.  If you care here are the official results.

Place: 31/325
Official chip time: 42:39.7
Category: F30-39
Category place: 4/72
Gender place: 9/203
Swim time: 7:45
Bike: 18:52
Run: 14:01
T1 (first transition, swim to bike): 1:13
T2 (second, bike to run): 0:51
Just for interest sake, I studied the top athletes and my transition times are very much within the range of top 10 (overall), and in fact my bike time would have placed me 13th!  (cool- yay to super fast new bike)!  Anyway I'm sure I've lost some of you to all these stats, but I care because in 3 weeks I will be doubling my distance at the Women's Milton Triathlon.  And I want a shot at some hardware! Or at least a good time with a good story!  I will be training really hard for the next 2 weeks.  Yesterday was my triathlon and today I already went out to train and did a 7k run. (I noticed my right knee is getting sharp pain so I will investigate strengthening my gluts to support my knee).  Tomorrow is my hot yoga in the AM and 2 hour Tri-practise with MIM (Mommy's in Motion/Babe's in Motion) group.

 So please keep sending me your love because sometimes I need it!  Some days I don't want to train, but knowing that I've got all of you sending your positive energy and motivation, it is what inspires me to push out of my "comfort zone" and go full tilt.  I am blessed to have the opportunity to train, I have an amazing husband who takes care of the kids, so when I leave the house with either my bike, running shoes or bathing suit (or all of the above) I work hard knowing that my time is precious! I appreciate so much what everyone has done so far! And I hope in turn I can motivate you, through my journey (mom of 4, returning to work after being home for 5 years with the kids) and my story!

Thank you!!!