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August 26, 2007
Check It Out!
First the boring stuff...training (!):
AM - 1:50 run with O on the trail; nice run
PM - 3000 meter swim; my YMCA and the Pitt pools were both closed today so that lead to a 35 minute drive (one-way) to the North Park outdoor pool. This pool is 50 meters which is awesome. I would swim there more often but it's just too far away. Hard to justify driving 35 minutes one way when my YMCA is a 4 minute drive. Anyway, the North Park pool is about to close for the season so they had the deep end closed (where the lane lines/lap lanes usually are). This made things a little interesting. I just swam along the divider to where the deep end was and pretending like I was swimming in open water. It really was a lot like open water in that there was nothing much to guide my direction, it was 50 meters (vs my usual pushing off the way every 25 yds), and there were little kids floating in and out and around me the whole time. Not the most conducive for a fast workout but I got the yardage in so I'm really not too worried.
ANYWAY - several weeks back the ITU emailed everyone competing in Age Group Worlds about a contest called "My Story". They didn't give much direction - just that if you wanted you could email them your story about training or racing and how you made it to Hamburg. Well I can never pass up the opportunity to win something so I wrote up a little 4 or 5 paragraph story about getting hit by the truck and still deciding to go out to Portland for Age Group Nationals, etc... You all know the story. :)
Anyway, I found out today that I was one of the 10 finalists! How exciting! I win some sort of mystery prize that I will have to pick up once I'm in Hamburg (can't wait to find out what it is!) and they will publish my story on the ITU website. How fun is that?!
Well I looked on the ITU website today and read about the first My Story finalist. (I'm not sure how they plan on doing this - perhaps one or two stories a day?). And what a tool I feel like! The first story is an amazing tale of a man from Great Britian that overcame a battle with pancreatic cancer (3 surgeries and multiple rounds of chemo/radiation) to make it to Hamburg! Awesome! I feel sort of embarrassed that my little tale of woe (boy, I was sore for what - all of 2 or 3 weeks? :) will be up on the website now! But oh well. What can you do?
So my excitement is building beyond belief right now. Part of which is probably due to the facts that (1) we are leaving in a day and (2) I'm finally going to start my taper. Now it will really feel like a race is pending! I'll have to admit that I'm a little anxious about some (okay A LOT) of the details like traveling, my bike, finding places to train while we are there, getting lost in a foreign country, etc... But I'm doing my very best to not let the details get to me. It's okay if everything isn't perfect. I will race hard regardless and enjoy the whole amazing experience like I should!
Anyway - got to go pack up the bike now (and take very detailed notes as to how to put it back together... ;)
Posted by beth at August 26, 2007 8:03 PM
Comments
I'm so excited for you!!!
Regarding the little kids swimming around you, shouldn't you just swim over them and shove them out of the way to prepare for your races? (Just kidding.)
Congratulations on being a finalist in the contest, and though that guy's story might evoke more sympathy, I'm sure your story will be really well written...plus you need to give yourself some credit for all you've overcome to get to this point! It'll be interesting to see what other people wrote about.
Have a great trip!
Posted by: Alison at August 26, 2007 9:44 PM
How exciting, Beth!! I cannot wait to hear all about your trip to Germany!!! Have a wonderful time and kick some butt too :)
Posted by: barb at August 27, 2007 4:55 PM