What is normal?

Today, December 18th, 2010, I filled out my paperwork, handed it and have recommited to the team, and promised them that I will continue to train with the team, so that they can buy my entry into the superseal triathlon on March 27th, 2011. I also need to thank everyone for their donations to date. I have met the minimum amount needed (first time doing that before recommitment) and was kept out of the TNT jail. But I still have a personal goal of raising $3,000, and I hope to meet that goal with your continued support.
As you have read in past posts, I am dedicating this event to Tyler and Raul, but I have not forgotten about my cousin Roy, NoJo, Virginia, and the many others out there who are battling cancer, and those who have lost their battle. I am honored to be doing this race in their honor. I'm adding one more person to the list, which really gets me mad. This morning at our training session, one of the participants on the team, Laurence, gave his mission moment (for those of you who are not part of the TNT family, that's when someone tells you their story of why they are involved with TNT) Laurence, is a funny guy, he's always there to tell a joke, give a sarcastic comment, and he's an all around great guy. So when he got up there to give his moment, and he was a little quieter then usual, I knew this was serious. Laurence informed the team that he's been battling Non Hodgkins Lymphoma since 2001. He went into remission, and right after his 5th anniversary of being cancer free. It returned, and he's been battling it every since. I was shocked, this seemingly carefree, class clown, has been battling a deadly disease and I didn't know. I couldn't tell, he was out there on his bike riding 20 miles with us, he was out there running a mile time trial (in a time so much faster then mine), and getting into the pool with us and swimming laps. He was healthy, he was laughing, he was "normal". But he isn't. He's sick, he's no longer going to be able to continue training with us, as he is about to start chemotherapy in the next few days. His body is going to be pecked and poked, he's going to most likely lose his hair, he's going to be "sick". And you know what he said? He said thank you, Thanks for helping him get better, to have something to look forward to (he plans on coming to the events to cheer us on).
It's not fair. I'm really hoping to help find a cure for this disease that knows no boundries, that thinks it can do what ever it wants, to whom ever it pleases. So if you can, please take a moment to go to my fundraising site, and make a donation. Just like cancer, LLS does not care how much, ou give, every penny from this point on that I raise, goes directly to LLS and research, support services, and so many other things, that I can't name them all. We need to find a cure so that people like Laurence, Roy, Tyler, Raul, Virginia, Natalie, et al. don't have to put up a fight like this anymore.
I'll resume my regular training updates soon. But this was a bit more important this week.

The Other Side

Another week down, another week closer to the big day. Once again, my weekly training was uneventful, especially since I wasn't exactly consistent with it. You know when you throw my birthday into the mix it kind of took a back seat. I did however have a moment where I didn't want to to go to my the track training session last Tuesday. I realized there was a bit of intimidation on my part. As you know I was able to complete a mile time trial a few weeks ago in a little over 11 minutes a mile. Now, I know that's actually a pretty good pace, especially since my endurance is a bit low, however, when I compare myself to others on my team, I'm slow. I hate being slow, I hate people being done with their workout before me, and then watching me finish. As much as I'd like to think I'm immune to caring about what other's think of me, I'm not. I care and I'm trying to get over it, but boy is it hard. But I bite the bullet and went anyway, granted my shin splints showede their nasty head, and made the run a bit miserable for me, and I couldn't finish the whole work out. But I went, I did my best and felt bpretty good about it afterwards.
I'm trying to take a new approach on things, I could sit here and dwell on the fact that my shins hurt, I didn't do the complete workout, but I'm not. I'm looking at the other side, the side that I did what I could, I did not let my self doubt and insecurities prevent me from going.
People who have cancer don't ask to be uncomfortable, they don't get the opportunity to back out and take a break when they're feeling sick or having pain. That's been my motto, and I'm letting myself remember it as much as I can.

A week in the Making

Last week we were scheduled to have our first team bike ride. Unfortunately, the weather didn't cooperate, and we did a 3 mile run in the rain instead. Rain isn't that big of a deal, it's the wind that sucks. Thankfully, I had previous experiences with running in the rain, and I remembered my garbage bag. What I didn't think of was to bring some extra bags with me and work on my fundraising. Damn lack of enterpeneurail spirit. Oh well, maybe next time. Who am I kidding! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there's no more experiences with rain during training times. =)

So I had an extra week to anticipate my first team bike ride. Thankfully, I had some distractions, no work, and preparing for Thanksgiving to keep the nerves at bay. So on November 27th, I woke at 5:30 so that I had plenty of time to have food, and get myself to our meeting site approximately 20-25 mins away. Thankful I had gotten myself an early birthday present of a portable Garmin GPS navigation system to use for my car. I made it to our meeting spot w/ plenty of time, to attach my bike wheel, and get some of the butterflies out of my system.
Coach had a lot of information to go over with us, and standing around in the cold wasn't any fun, again, thankful to my previous training experience I dressed in layers and was ready to listen. Then it was finally time to get into our groups and start our ride. We were doing a 2.5 mile loop approximately 5-10 times, depending on ability level. I went 5 loops and was relieved to have bought and worn my bike shorts. I don't know if I could have dealt with sitting on a bike saddle for that length of time with out 'em. =)
With the first team bike ride going so well, I got out to join the team again today for another 10 mile bike ride. There were rolling hills on the course today, and I felt good. Let's see how the legs hold up for my birthday swim tomorrow.

Getting into the Swing of Things

This was the first full week of coached and uncoached training sessions. It was long and emotional. Monday the team had our first coached swim session. It started at 7:00pm in a community pool in LaJolla, which means it didn't make sense for me to come all the way home from work before going, considering work is the half way point (note to self: need to seriously look into moving closer to work). So I stayed late at work, and made my way to the pool. Up until Monday, I was feeling pretty good about this whole Triathalon training, but by Monday, I was pretty nervous, and unsure of what I had gotten myself into. I haven't swam for true exercise or purpose since I had instructional swim while in summer camp as a kid. I began to seriously question my ability to do it. But while I was sharing my nerves with one of my co-workers, I said, "no one asks to be uncomfortable when going through chemo, or they're not scared of what will happen when they are diagnosed with cancer, especially kids." It put my fears into perspective, and got me a bit more prepared for the swim. I however, was still nervous as HELL. I couldn't help it, but I didn't let my fears get the best of me. There's approximately 100 people on the tri team at this moment, (that's including support staff) and the coach asked if there were any beginners out there. Knowing that my endurance sucks, and that I was nervous, I raised my hand with approximately 20 other people. I was relived to see the other hands. The coach then separated us when it was time to get into the water. He gave us pointers, on form, position, and a few other things, and then had us get in the water. Coach continued to give us pointers as we were in the water, and I have to say, by using the pointers the coach gave, I felt a difference in my swim from when we started and when we finished. I believe being a beginner gave me the confidence boost I need to be successful right now. I also forgot how much I enjoy being in the water.
On to our first coached run session. That was Tuesday night, thankfully, not as late as our swim, but late enough that again it didn't pay for me to go home from work first. I got to the track for our pace assessment. We were going to run a mile at our fastest and then Coach is going to devise a training plan for us to do our best 10K distance. Coach had us do a mile warm up, with some breaks for stretching, and lecturing. I took my time on the warm ups. I was paranoid that my shins were going to act up, since they hurt like crazy from the run we did on Saturday. So slow like a turtle I went, and surprisingly no shin pain! I kept anticipating the pain as I did each warm up lap. But it never showed up. I was relived again, and I just figured as I ran faster for the assessment, it would show up. Well, I started somewhat slow, again with a crazy amount of people at varying running speeds, it wasn't so easy to get out of the starting gate fast. I also conciously made myself go slow, I knew I had 4 laps to complete and my goal was not to walk to much. So I  completed the first lap, and I didn't walk. There were 2 other people who I was pitting myself against. I would pass one, and then another and then one of them would pass me, and on it went, for laps, 1, 2 and 3. I think I had my first walk break towards the end of lap 2, but since I was so close to the start/end I kept it short. I then hit lap three and breathing was becoming difficult for me, so I took more walk breaks, but tried to keep them short. By lap 4, forget it. I couldnt' breath, but kept my arms up and swinging, and tried to speed walk. I think my speed walking is as fast as my running is at this point. But I kept telling myself, keep one foot in front of the other. So I did. and I finished my one mile in a little over 11 mins. At first I was shocked and relived. I wasn't the last one to cross the finish line. Then I was proud of myself for the time I finished in. Then.....I....got.....mad..."how could you walk so much?....If you didn't walk you would have finished faster....etc....etc..." I couldn't believe how fast I was able to take away any and all pride I had in myself. I seriously would have kicked my own butt if my legs weren't so darn tired. But I did make myself stop, and remember that I wasn't last, and I was proud of my time. I still have moments where I begin to beat myself up over my walking breaks, but how much faster I could have gone. But then I remind myself, it can only get better.
Wow! this is long, so I wont bore you with the rest of the long details, plus these two events were the most news worth anyway.
I'm off to prepare myself for my first team bike session (weather permitting) tomorrow. Can't wait to share how that goes with you.
Thanks again for the support and don't forget to make a donation if you can. I still have a ways to go until I hit my fundraising goal!
http://pages.teamintraining.org/sd/sealtri11/stunick

Training Session 1 and Expo

Today I went to my first team training session. I've been directionally challenged lately, and I didn't want to be late, so I gave myself an hour to go 30 mins.And guess what?! I made it with plenty of time and didn't get lost at all. I signed in, got my picture taken, received my nice florescent green swim cap, and started mingling. Not surprising, I met some really nice people, some who actually live near me (I see carpooling in my future) a few that share my name, (but they still don't know how to spell it correctly), and someone who lived in CT for a few years for work. It's nice to have met people who I have some basic commonality with, to help build up relationships with.

After spending 2.5 hours going over important information about what we are getting ourselves into, and what we need to know about each sport we will be participating in for our triathalons. we set out on our first full team training run. The coaches split us up depending on the distance we wanted to run. The lowest mileage was 2 miles, while the highest was 8 miles. It had gotten a bit warm, but then again it's San Diego, so even though it felt warm, it was so nice to run. I ended up running with a woman from the team (who surprisingly I 've forgetten her name already) and we chatted and compared notes. as everyone knows whose reading this blog, it's nice to spend your training time with others, it helps it to go faster. 

I've also volunteered to help organize a team fundraiser with the team captain. We will be doing a Jail N Bail fundraiser. So I'm off to go try and get donations for us to use.

Trying not to compare

I went to my second event for the San Diego/HI triathalon team last night. They had kick off last night. It was different to be at kickoff during the week. I'm so used to waking up early on a Saturday to go to a large school gym with hundreds of my closest "friends". Instead there was a small group of us from the marathon, cycle and tri teams, and maybe 3 vendors sharing their expertise and giving out some coupons.
The small size was the biggest difference I found. I guess I can get past that, especially since I found the people were the same, and that's really all that matters.
To top off kick off, I received an email at work today regarding my honored teammate Raul....
Raul's father called one of our co-workers who wrote...  Mom and Dad "went to a meeting with Raul’s team of doctors yesterday to get the results of the imaging tests that were performed on Raul.  They were told that all the tumors in his abdomen, neck and cheeks are all gone.  He had a great response to the chemo and they are so HAPPY!"

First Blog Post

Hi and welcome to my blog. This is going to be my place to share my experiences as I train for my first Triathalon. I will be completing the Superseal Tri in March 2011. I will be training with an amazing organization called Team in Training (TNT). It is the number 1 endurance training program in the US. The money that is raised goes back to the Leukemia and Lymphomia Society (LLS). Although this is my first Triathalon, this is not my first time being a volunteer athelete with the Team.
I started my journey with the Team back in May 2006, when I signed up to complete marathon. Yes, that's right, I decided that I wanted to run 26.2 miles. So I spent the next 5 months training with an amazing group of people, who all had different reasons for joining TNT. Regardless, these people and myself helped to raise money to find a cure for blood cancers. I then decided to return to the team for the next 4 years, and was not only a participant, but a mentor, and captain for the team. I met some of the most amazing people, who have now become my friends and are continuing to support me and inspire me.
I then took a year away from the team in order to adjust to my new surroundings and new job. While adjusting two families were dealing and struggling with the effects of cancer on a daily basis, and I realized that I needed to get outside of my comfort zone, and do something that is bigger than myself. So I rejoined TNT, to raise money to help find a cure.
I plan on dedicating a post to the 2 boys that have inspired me to do this at a later date.
Thank you for supporting me, inspiring me.