Triathlon #3 - June 3, 2017 in Greenville

My friend Kara and I were supposed to do a triathlon together last summer, but after her Guillain Barre diagnosis and subsequent temporary paralyzation, plans obviously changed. As she regained her strength, we knew it was a must for this year.  Because that's Kara...why just learn to walk again when you can kill it with a swim, bike, and run?!  

We began training in our separate cities, comparing notes, sore muscle complaints (that bike seat!), and training plans. Four months of hard work later, we felt ready.  Mostly.

We headed up to Greenville the Friday before and met her husband and family at a local hotel.  Our husbands stayed with the kids at the pool while we went to go pick up our race packets.  As we were walking out of the YMCA, we saw a roped-off section leading into the woods.  WAIT just a minute there, mister....was this a TRAIL run?!  Oh lawdy.  Trail runs do NOT mix well with my once-broken ankle and they sure as heck aren't ideal for Kara.  We tracked down a race volunteer and asked him about it.  He replied that "only the first 1/2 mile is trail...and it's not 'technical'" (I discovered later that that meant a lot of uneven terrain, roots, rocks, etc.)  Welp, it was too late to turn back now.  

We nervously headed back to the hotel and hung out by the pool for a bit.  We discussed dinner options and settled on an Italian place that had gluten-free options and good reviews. After the kids dried off and changed clothes, we headed out.  About ten minutes into the drive I thought it would be a good idea to attempt to do call-ahead seating and discovered there would be about an hour wait.  Obviously that would not work well with five hungry kids.  We rerouted to a different spot and got seated within ten minutes.  It was a great dinner full of lots of catching up with surprisingly few interruptions since the kids were at a booth behind us.  (Our apologies to the family on the other side of them.)  We surprised Kara's oldest daughter and Audrey with an ice cream birthday treat for their June birthdays. There was enough for all five kids to eat a gracious plenty and everyone left with full, happy bellies. 

By the time we let the oldest girls exchange birthday gifts and got everyone settled down in their own rooms, it was after 9 o'clock.  Since they'd had a full afternoon of swimming, they fell asleep pretty quickly.  David and I were a different story.  My race jitters were running rampant.  I finally settled down, but then woke up around 2am.  I read for awhile and eventually fell back asleep around 3:30ish.  The alarm went off at 5am and I got up and quietly got ready in the dark.  We woke the kids up about 5:30am and they were surprisingly pleasant.  After grabbing some fruit and yogurt at the continental breakfast, we loaded up the cars and went to the race site.  

Kara and I got "body-marked"  (still a favorite part - it just feels so hardcore!) and put our chip timer anklets on and then set up our transition area spots.  I was still incredibly nervous, mostly about having such an attentive audience for the swim portion.  David and the kids had never seen me do the swim before...they'd just shown up along the bike route for my previous races.  The athletes began lining up poolside and we listened to a few last minute instructions from the race director. We got in semi-order of fastest to slowest  (since it's a pool swim, they let athletes jump in one at a time every 5 seconds or so according to their swim time.)  Kara was a good bit ahead of me so I was able to see her swim and then run over to give her a high-five as she exited the pool.  

All too quickly, it was my turn to jump in.  I started off passing a lady right away, which I think was my first mistake.  I was going way too fast.  As I came to the end of the first lane (which was 50 yards instead of the 25 I'm used to training in), I came up for air and gulped in a huge amount of water.  As in, lungs FULL of water.  

Now. If you're new to swimming or are just unsure how lungs work, you may not know that lungs full of water is no bueno.  

Hindsight sure is 20/20 isn't it?  Because I know now that what I should have done was stop right there, grab the wall, and wait as long as it took until I regained normal breathing. But I didn't do that. I pushed on.  And quickly realized I was in trouble.  I could not catch my breath and I was now in the middle of the deep end.  I kept going, trying to regulate my breathing and calm myself down.  I swam with my head above the water, trying to catch my breath.  My mind was racing.  I grabbed the rope and started treading for a moment.  I really thought I was going to have to get saved by a lifeguard or get out and quit.  It was HORRIBLE.  I could not get my brain or my lungs to chill out.  And my kids were watching. 

Finally,  I remembered what my swim coach once told me about flipping over and doing backstroke if I had to.  I did that for a minute and finally felt ready to try freestyle stroke with my head down again.  By this point, though, my mental game was toast.  I felt completely defeated, humiliated, and incapable.  Try swimming and breathing normally when those thoughts are racing through your mind.  On the last lane, I caught glimpses of Luke standing poolside holding up his little sign for me.  "You will not quit or fail in front of these kids," I told myself.  If you ever doubt what a difference a cheering section can do, don't.  I finished the lap, wearily climbed out, gave David a "that-nearly-killed-me" glance, and then ran to the transition area to get ready to bike.

It took me a few miles on the bike to shake off what had happened.  I finally just had to tell myself that it was over and it was time to focus on the next task at hand.  I did well on the bike, breaking my top speed record by nearly 10 mph when I hit close to 35 going down a hill.  Honestly, that was probably too fast and a dangerous call, but I was determined to make up as much time as I could.

I finished the 15 mile bike and came into the transition area in a much better mood than I'd left it.  I had a hard time racking the bike because the people on either side of me had left no room (serious triathlon faux pas).  I finally got it, grabbed my running belt and race bib, and ran out towards the trail.  It was tough and a lot more "technical" than they had let on (at one point I had to jump a small creek...it was very small, but if you have to jump anything, I'd say that's at least a little rough!)  It was shaded, but pretty hilly.  I reached the usual point of a race where one side of me is begging the other to let me walk and the other side is refusing.  Yes, it's as schizophrenic as it sounds.  I thought I caught a glimpse of Kara up ahead of me, which pushed me through another couple of minutes.  It turned out not to be her, but the mirage helped tremendously.  

When I came out of the woods and up to the road, our cheering section was there waiting with their signs and cow bells.  I gave them a wave and turned out onto the road to pound out the 2.5 miles that I had left.  In the distance I saw Kara coming towards me (the real one this time) and nearly burst with pride.  It was so amazing to see her doing this race after all that she'd been through.  I had seen her paralyzed in ICU then clawing her way back in rehab and now here she was just a little over a year later doing a triathlon.  Awesome.  Tears welled up as we passed each other and high-fived.  "You can do this!" she shouted  "If you can do that bike course, you've got this run!"  I returned a "You're almost there!  You're doing great!" and kept plugging away.  It wasn't a bad run, but it definitely had some hills.  I didn't have my music for either the bike or the run, which also makes a huge difference. Being stuck with your own thoughts is a lot more mentally challenging than if you have a distracting podcast or a good beat to listen to.  

I reached the home stretch and saw Kara with our crew waiting.  I crossed the finish line, hearing them cheer and the announcer say my name.  Thank you, LORD, I'd made it.  We circled up and compared notes about the course and our experiences.  I told them about the horrible swim and they listened sympathetically.  We looked at our results (I was last out of the 9 in our age group, but expected that...)  Later Kara's husband showed me these meme and I died laughing:

A perfect depiction of my experience during that swim.  But I'd made it.  I hadn't quit and I lived to tell about it.  We went back to the hotel for showers and then out for a celebratory brunch at Cracker Barrel.  The kids entertained each other while the adults talked.  We wrapped up and headed out to the "front porch" to say our goodbyes.  I squeezed Kara and told her how incredibly proud I was of her before we peeled away and loaded up our van. The kids were as sad to say goodbye as we were, but we promised to get together again soon. 

David, the kids, and I headed to Greenville to spend the afternoon tooling around the city. We went to Falls Park on the Reedy, which was gorgeous.  We walked trails around there and then a little through the city before going back to the van and driving to a little toy shop the Taylors had recommended.  The kids each got $5 to spend on a souvenir and then we went to a Mast General Store, which Kara introduced me to in Asheville.  We browsed, grabbed an ornament for our travel tree, and then crossed the street for ice cream.  It was a sweet ending to a great weekend.  We walked back to our van, buckled up, and got on 85 towards home.  All of us turned in extra early that night, but not without first thanking God for our sweet friends and a good race.  He'd gotten me through, no doubt, and I was incredibly grateful!

Here are a few pictures from our weekend:

The kids table at dinner on Friday night

I've never been so happy to touch the wall!

Heading out for the bike ride and trying to clear my head from that swim

Nearing the finish line...as if you couldn't tell from the expression of joy on my face. 

Love my cheering section!

Finished!

Falls Park on the Reedy

Outside an art studio leaving their mark on Greenville

In front of a cool local toy shop

Ending a great weekend on a sweet note with an ice cream treat

March 2016 Recap

I'm going to try to keep this on the short side because I'm also attempting finish my post about our trip to Great Wolf Lodge.  

The month did not start off very promisingly as Audrey came down with a fever the very first weekend.  We'd gone to Home Depot kids' workshop, which was a lot of fun, but she was very crabby and complained the whole way home about her head hurting.  We discovered she had a fever and she and I pretty much spent the rest of the weekend lying around and reading books.  She never had any other symptoms except ones related to her fever, like loss of appetite and energy.  It hadn't broken by Sunday afternoon, so I made the call that she would stay home on Monday.  Of course she woke up Monday morning with it gone, but I kept her home anyway so she'd be 24 hours fever free before being around other kids.  I'm almost sure it was the very first sick day she's ever had, including through all of preschool (other than missing for her endoscopy or another check-up) which is impressive.  I hated that she felt bad, but I did like having an extra chill day with her!

This month held a lot of volunteer hours at and for Audrey's school.  The second week I went up one day to work on a project for Teacher Appreciation Week, volunteered at my regular shift the next day, and then went up to help chaperone the mini-Relay for Life that the school put on that Thursday.  Thankfully they had a day off that Friday, which I was ready for.  My mom came over and I went out for about an hour and caught my breath.  That evening the kids and I met Kara and her kids at a local park as they were passing through town on the way to her parents'.  We caught up in between swing pushes and head counts and then ate a pizza picnic dinner together before heading out.

That Saturday David and I dusted off the bikes and went for a ride.  We weren't too far in before we discovered the gears were shot on his and were stuck in the highest position, which made hills impossible.  We did a couple of miles before packing it in and heading to lunch.  It was a beautiful day and made us thrilled about the onset of Spring.  

The next week was Teacher Appreciation Week for both Audrey's and Luke's schools.  It's honestly a bit of a blur, but I remember dropping off things on a lot of mornings and sending a whole bunch of email reminders to parents.  There was a short substituting job in there somewhere, which mainly involved lots of counting heads and making sure no one broke a leg at recess.  St. Patrick's Day was that week as well and I did my motherly duty of putting the kids in green and then moving on with life because expectations need to be kept in check.  (This is a great line to use anytime you don't feel like summoning the energy to make a grand gesture.  You're welcome to borrow it anytime.)

The end of that week brought really terrible and scary news from our precious friends the Taylors.  I want to respect her and her right to her own story, so I will only cover the highlights here.  Kara had called me on the 16th to let me know that she was really sick with some very strange symptoms.  After many in-depth tests, they diagnosed her with Guillian-Barre Syndrome, a very rare disease where the immune system attacks the nervous system.  It is very serious and can result in paralysis or worse as the lungs are effected and breathing becomes impaired.  She was checked into the hospital in Columbia, South Carolina and her sister Meghan, who is also a physician's assistant, kept me in the loop about what was going on.  Around 8pm that night, Meghan texted me "She just keeps getting worse.  This is so scary."  David and I got on our faces and I sobbed as we pleaded with God for her healing.  We debated about driving up that night or whether to go the next day.  We ultimately decided to wait for news in the morning and spent a restless night alternating between fitful sleep and urgent prayer.  The next morning we got word that treatment had begun and that she was improving.  Relief and joy fell in our house and I forced myself to go work out in her honor that morning.  She pushes me to be better when she's well and she even pushes me when she's not...amazing.  

I went up to see her a few days later.  It was so good to lay eyes on her and see improvement. Again, I won't go into great detail, but she was exhausted and weak.  She could barely feed herself and was in a lot of pain.  Still, she called every nurse and tech by name, she admonished me for not having eaten anything all day, and she struggled to laugh at my lame jokes.  She did her very best at OT and PT, which at that point meant standing with a lot of help and a walker for just a few seconds.  Her mom came in that afternoon and the two of us visited while Kara snoozed before I left to drive back home that evening to get back in time for Luke's egg hunt the next morning.  For the next day or so, she seemed to improve a little bit.  Unfortunately, the worst was not over.  She began to regress and by Monday the 28th, she was moved to ICU and had a feeding tube put in.  They began another form of treatment and, praise God, she finally turned a corner.  I went up the next week to see her and, even though she was in ICU, I could tell the new treatments were working.  She was able to do a few sit and stands on a walker at that point and even sat up in a chair for a few hours.  I probably kept her awake by running my mouth too long, but it was just so good to see her finally getting better.  I drove home that evening feeling confident she was on the upswing, but still had a few intense conversations with the Lord about the entire situation.  It's just crazy how much we take our health and our loved ones for granted until either or both are at stake and it's offered a huge dose of perspective for me.

While she was in the hospital, her kids came down to stay with their Aunt Meghan, who lives about two miles from me.  We got to meet up with them for a couple of play dates, including one at the park where I'd been with Kara just two weeks earlier.  It was a sad, surreal realization.  Between Meg's, Kara's, and mine, we had eight kids ages seven and under, so I don't how much was "play" and how much was simply keeping everyone alive and mostly fed.  Still, it did my heart so much good to be around people that were an extension of her.  I loved on those kids like they were my own and cherished every minute with them.  Spoiler alert for next month's recap:  The kids went back home to South Carolina on April 8th, which was also the day Kara moved from the hospital into a rehab facility.  They finally got to see their mama, who is doing amazingly well and will hopefully get to go home in a couple more weeks.  

Easter rolled around at the end of the month.  The day before, we got the kids up and met David's parents to do a 5k near us.  I was so incredibly impressed with the kids, who walked the entire thing.  We had taken their jogging strollers just in case, but they didn't use them even once.  Audrey was a little moody because it was such a small race and we came in last, but she got over it when we drove the entire course afterward and she realized what an amazing feat they had accomplished!  That afternoon we went to a birthday party for my niece, who came up from Savannah.  We painted pottery, bopped balloons, and visited with everyone for a couple of hours before heading home.  We dyed a few Easter eggs and then had a pajama pizza picnic while watching Horton Hears a Who.  

The next morning we woke up and celebrated Easter with a great church service followed by the kids finding their filled baskets and us doing an indoor egg hunt (due to rain outside.)  There may have also been a nap in there somewhere.  For dinner,  I fixed a big meal with ham, macaroni and cheese, green beans, pinto beans, deviled eggs, and mashed potatoes. (I realize this is the way our grandmothers cooked nightly from scratch, but it's a rare treat in our house.)  It was a great weekend full of family and fun.  

Other highlights of the month:

 - I took a tour of the day center of Family Promise, which is the benefactor for this year's Timber Trek.  More details on them to follow, but it was very impressive and I'm so excited we'll be able to bless them a little this year!

 - We had to repair both my computer (new hard drive and battery...way, way cheaper than buying a new one and hopefully it'll make it last another 12-18 months) and my brakes (faulty pads that they replaced for free) because we couldn't find anything better to do with our money or our time.  (Adulthood can be a blast sometimes.)

 - On the slightly more fun side of spending money, we had three new trees put in (that sounds more impressive than it is...they're only about 5 feet tall) and a 12 foot deck with a pergola built onto our existing deck.  Pictures to follow once the wood is dried out and staining is complete. 

As for my resolutions, I'm doing pretty well.  I did finally clean out the master closet, though...cough, cough...that may have been done in April which was a little past my first quarter goal.  I had dinner with two different girlfriends and I had two dates with David this month.  I got to see my mom outside of a family birthday party, which was great.  For our service project, we did the 5k (had to swap March and April's projects) and had a good time.  I definitely need to work on blogging more and on community and family social time.  It's important to have things to strive for, right?!

To close, some kid stories and quotes:

 - I started working with Luke on how to call 911.  When discussing actual emergency reasons to call, he spouted off three in a row immediately: "If your hair was on fire! If Audrey fell in hot lava! If Daddy got thrown onto the roof!"  Sounds an awful lot like premeditation there, buddy.

 - Luke: "Hey! This is the song you and Daddy always sing to me and Audrey!" Was it some sweet, loving lullaby or praise song? Nope. Try Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want."

 - Audrey was beyond ecstatic when she got home from school one day because she got to play the part of lunchroom monitor for her class and take down names of disruptive students. Two thoughts: a) She is most definitely my daughter and b) do snitches get stitches in first grade?

That's it for this month!  Please lift up Kara and her family in prayer and I'll keep you posted on her progress!

More Baby Showers!

Sorry I've gotten behind in posting! After three baby showers in four days, I had plenty to keep me busy. This past week has been full of washing Baby Girl's clothes, sheets, blankets, burp cloths, washcloths, bibs...you get the idea. I've lost count of how many loads I've done! I also ran around town to make returns and exchanges and pick up some stuff I thought we still needed.

Of course, I had a lot of fun getting everything organized and put away. Just a few more days and I'll be ready to post pictures of a finished nursery! Until then, here are some baby shower details:

Shower #3 was given by the State PTA Office, which is where my mother-in-law Pam works. I worked there part-time in college, and these sweet ladies wanted to do something special for us. All of the decorations were gorgeous - I really wish I'd taken more pictures! I appreciate everyone that took time out of their busy weeks and interrupted their work to be there. Everyone was so generous and Pam even got a couple of Grandmom gifts!

Shower #4 was given by Sheila, Beth, and Pam...ladies I met (and two I worked with) at Cross Pointe. The food was so delicious and Sheila's house was gorgeous as usual. They made me feel like a queen and put so much time into making the day a memorable one. We ate, laughed (as we always do when we're together), and I opened my wonderful presents. It was a long-anticipated party and it lived up to my every expectation!

Beth, my mom, Pam, and Sheila cracking up:

Beth, Sheila, Me, and Pam:

Shower #5 was given by April, a close friend and former Cross Pointe co-worker. This one included all of the women in my Life Group. The afternoon was perfect! The food and cake (which we ate for days after) were wonderful, the punch was probably the best I've ever had, and the sweet notes of encouragement they wrote me are a wonderful keepsake. I have been to countless baby showers since we've been in this class and it was so special for it to be my turn.

April and these ladies are such a blessing to me and I know I will grow to lean on them even more in the coming months. These women know a thing or two about pregnancy and raising babies! It's great to know I'll have people to turn to who truly understand what I'm going through and share in our desire to raise a daughter to walk with the Lord.

The adorable clothesline decoration:

The gorgeous and yummy cake that matched the invitation perfectly:

April and me. Did I mention she's also pregnant and was leaving town the next day to go on vacation with her husband and two young kids?! She is my superwoman hero!

Baby Shower #2

Last Saturday I had another awesome Baby Shower. This one was given by my sweet friends Lara Lynn and Holly. Everything was perfect and I had such a good time! They are both excellent cooks, so the food was delicious. Even the game was right up my alley (it involved list-making. They know me so well!) They put a lot of thought and hard work into it and it really showed. I appreciate these ladies and their friendships more than they will ever know and I am so blessed to have them in my life!

I also want to write a special thanks to all of the people that traveled a long way to be there. There were several guests that made a great effort to drive into town, some traveling with babies! We really appreciate everyone coming to be a part of the special day!

This Baby is going to be very well-dressed! And notice my corsage that my Mom made!

David's Mom, Me, David's maternal Grandmother, and David's Aunt Elaine:

My sister-in-law Jenny, my Mom, my paternal Grandma, Me, and my sister-in-law Kim:

Lara Lynn, Me, and Holly: