After my last post travel began again.. I headed off to Sinapore for a bit for work and well I tried to keep up with training, but work, the heat & humidity, monkeys and a book might have distracted me a bit.. Yes I said MONKEY's. Over the weekend when I was in Singapore, I decided to take a ferry over to Bintan, Indonesia. I went for a run the first morning there and about 2 miles in all these wild little monkey started flying around in trees and across the path I was on and scared the living shit out of me.. I RAN all the way back to the hotel a bit freaked out. haha - I now can laugh, but I had no idea what they were, I was alone and seriously was freaked out.. so needless to say my run was cut short, but hey better than nothing & what an experience... I also took a day off to ride an elephant.. so cool and amazing what life has given me in my so many adventures in life.
Next up... I left Singapore on a LONG journey in order to get to NY in time for my little sisters wedding!! So a few short workouts, but again, not what I should be doing, but it was okay as this is a day I wouldn't have missed & am truly blessed to have been able to be a part of. It was an amazing weekend, one I prayed would happen one day. All of my siblings together in one place for the first time in a little over 20 years.. truly a blessing & on a day my sister married her best friend. Truly a blessing. After a weekend of great memories with my sister, I flew home to another blessing..
I got home and received the news that Doug (see more on him from earlier blogs) our team hero on May 23rd received a stem cell transplant that was a success. He still has a battle ahead... so keep he & his family in your thoughts & prayers, but I would like to share something he shared with us the next day....
Life is short. It is so important that we make the best use of our time here on earth - striving to live our lives in a way that we can look back on when our time comes and say to ourselves "I have made a difference". There is ...someone on this earth who has done just that very thing today - giving of himself with the intent of helping me. I am so grateful for the wonderful thing this person has ...done for me - I only hope that I will be presented with the opportunity to do something of such magnitude for someone else during my lifetime.
and even better news, he has been walking around the hospital getting his exercise and trying to get strong again... So why am I sharing all this on a blog about my adventures to get to my first IronMan in August ... because he is one of my inspirations and who got me through my training weekend this weekend..
Over the 3 day weekend I FINALLY got back into training.. I biked 90 miles in total over the weekend and ran 13 miles.. I am tired and sore, but reality is back that I have a 1/2 Ironman in 2 weeks and the full in 3 months.. I complained, I mentally had to push myself.. BUT thoughts of Doug & others in my life now and in the past truly got me through on Sunday when the winds were so strong that I held on with white knuckles to stay up on my bike....I am blessed to be healthy enough to train for something like this and truly can't take that for granted...
Now if I could just figure out how to take a power nap between each leg of the race in August as maybe it will make me think it is a new day when I get up, because the thought of adding 22 miles of biking to what I did over the long weekend, doubling the running distance, oh and adding 2.4 miles of swimming to it all in ONE day - well it simply scares me.. However I WILL continue to train, not take my health for granted and pull for those that can't and visualize crossing that finish line to my ultimate athletic goal...
