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Danskin 2011 – Registration

All month long I’ve been complaining to my friends and family about how I feel as if I am running, constantly, to catch some goal that keeps moving.  Professionally and personally, everything seems to be going at breakneck speed.  I got an email this morning letting me know that the race registration for the Danskin Tri had opened.  I stared at the message on my screen for a minute, poleaxed, trying to figure out whether I had lost time.  Could it be that time of year already???

It was my intention, always, to do the Danskin again next year.  But, this morning’s email made me realize how short time has really become.  Just as weekends are a fleeting punctuation to the workweek, so is the winter nothing but a pause before the hell-for-leather preparation that comes before doing a triathlon.

Maybe the race producers knew this and decided to help me (yes, me, personally) with my goal-setting by opening the race earlier….?  Okay, maybe they just want to sell out the race quick so they can draw in some big time sponsors, fine.  The end result is the same:  I have to get off my ass and get moving, like NAO.

The sum total of my training so far has included a summer of CrossFit (more on that later), which ended in August with the start of the school year, and watching my husband come home from his nightly runs in training for his own marathon this January. (The fact that 4 weeks of running seems to have reversed time and transformed him back into the 27 year old I met hasn’t been as motivating for me as you might think)

And so I started asking myself, Do you really want to do this?

And the answer is, No.

Emphatically, no.

Do you want to get up early and run? No

Do you want to swim endless laps until it gets too cold to force your self into the water? No

Do you want to schedule bricks on your Saturdays while your kids are at karate or basketball? No

Do you want to have to convince yourself, during every workout, that you should not stop, should not take it easy, should not call it a day?  No

But, you’re going to do it anyway, aren’t you?  Yes

I don’t do this race because I think I can.  I do it because a part of me is convinced that I can’t… that there is no way I can carve out the time in my schedule… that I don’t have the energy… that my family will miss me too much… that it’s too expensive…

That part of me wants me to believe that what I’ve done is good enough, and that I don’t have to prove anything to anybody.  That girl is happy with the status quo.  My plan is to drown her in the swim.  And if that fails, I’ll run her over with my bike.  And if I can’t do that, I’ll leave her behind in the run.  She’s bad news, that girl.  She’ll buy you ice cream and then ask you if you’re seriously going out in that bikini.  She’ll feed you doughnuts for breakfast and teach your kids that Wii baseball is better than playing outside.  She’s remarkably resilient, and I’ll probably never be totally rid of her, but if registering in November instead of February will shut her up for an extra three months, then let me get my credit card.

Danskin 2010 – Race Day Report

Today is the eve of my 34th birthday. The soreness from the race is gone and I’ve had a few days to get back into the grind of day to day work. Today is a day like any other, but I have found myself taking inventory – I suppose on our birthdays, it is what we are supposed to do.

Training for the Danskin was, in a way, an inventory as well. Each training day, I’d number my aches, the minutes of lost sleep, all the reasons why I didn’t have time to do this. I’d count strokes and steps and minutes and laps. When those seemed too much to do, I’d just count breaths.

Standing in the water on race day, I found myself counting women. There were about a dozen swim caps I could see in the water from the wave ahead of mine – little bobbing yellow blurs, seen without my glasses. They had to be close for me to see them, so i knew they were slow, and I knew they were scared. To my right was a woman waiting to begin her first race ever. I’d leave her behind in the first minute and never see her again. To my left were a dozen friends – chatty, grinning. excited. Ahead of me was an older woman, looking grim and determined. I counted them and cataloged them and I wondered who I was to them.

The race start took me by surprise and then we were off in a churning rush of hands and feet. There were exclamations and apologies as we sorted ourselves out and the bottom dropped out of the pond. I took a few hard strokes to test my muscles. I fought hard against the urge to sprint ahead and try to gain some ground. I felt light and sleek in the water – my body knew exactly what to do and I turned my inventory inward.

I am 34 years old – that’s thirty-four times around the sun.

I have married one man twice. Yep, twice to the same guy. We’ve been married 11 years.

I have two children. They are six and four years old. They were each delivered at 39 weeks. They were each nursed for 12 months. Neither has slept a single night all the way through.

I have totaled one car.

I have had one miscarriage.

I have traveled to five continents.

I have been to Disney 87 times.

I have five email accounts.

I have no pets.

I have two blogs, one public, one secret.

I have one sister.

I have been working at the same place for 12 years.

These thoughts carried me around the course, passing markers and swimmers. Swim angels called out to women but I pushed through because I knew none of them were talking to me. As I turned around the last large marker and headed towards the beach, I began to count the women who’d brought me to the race today.

Paula, my mother-in-law, who is cancer-free for 11 years.

Karen, a co-worker who lost her battle with cancer.

Christina, my best friend. We went to high school together, but weren’t best friends then. Cancer-free for three years, she is one week older than me. Our children say they are going to marry each other.

Merry, my high school best friend. We haven’t spoken in many years. She was diagnosed three years ago, and I do not know her status.

Magnolia, my mother’s best friend for the last 44 years. She is in the fight of her life.

Betsy, cancer-free for 30 years, with children, grandchildren, and a fiance.

Pushing hard through the water, I felt a wholeness I hadn’t really thought possible. Every stroke, every breath, reminded me that the challenge I took on in training is tiny compared to the fight these women are facing. Women like me, whose lives are filled with lists and responsibilities.

In the end, I posted a time that was faster than my training. I came out of the water nearly as fast as I had gone in, and sprinted up the beach find my team-mates. I sat on the grass and watched the women coming in to transition – elated, shaky, smiling, grim – every one of them doing her own inventory, counting the reasons to push through. I could list endlessly all the reasons why this race is a good idea, but really, I just have one reason. For me.

I hope that you did it for you.

Danskin 2010 – Race Day Registration

Saturday Morning: Race Registration
I had a strict time line for the morning, as I wanted to be home in time to clean up before hosting my son’s little league team. I had it scheduled like this:
8:00 pick up Paula (my team-mate)
8:10 Starbucks
8:20 hit the highway
9:05 park at Disney
9:20 wait for registration to open.

It actually went more like this:
8:00 – head out to the car with 4-year-old attached to my leg, crying
8:10 – give up and head inside to help 4-year-old change her clothes
8:15 – leave for Paula’s
8:25 – head out from Paula’s for Starbuck’s
8:30 – get a call that I had left the house with both kids’ carseats, and my son was late for karate testing
8:33 – Paula realizes she doesn’t have her photo ID in her wallet
8:40 – drop off kids carseats at home
8:43 – meet Paula’s husband in the middle of the road to handoff ID
8:50 – STARBUCKS!!!
9:00 – hit highway
9:17 – narrowly avoid firey highway death due to asshat in a Forerunner.

After all that, it was pretty smooth sailing. We arrived at Disney at about 10:00 am and inquired about parking for race registration. The attendant kindly told us to “Follow Doppy.”

um. wut?

“Follow Doppy!”

um. k thx bai.

We opted instead to follow the car in front of us, which had a road bike strapped to the trunk. This turned out to be a Good Thing. We parked, headed over to the Mears Bus and waited. Like any Disney associated event, waiting is the theme. But that’s alright – I brought my knitting. No, really. It’s a lovely merino/bamboo/silk blend in fingering weight four-ply. It’s for socks.

I had a fun time people-watching while waiting in line. It was amazing to see such an array of women, all ages, body shapes, fitness levels. Some with no makeup, some with body glitter. All a little nervous and excited that the day had FINALLY come. Registration was the usual organized chaos. With over 1200 athletes, I thought it went smoothly. We browsed a bit ($32 for a spandex running belt! o.O) before heading home to await Race Day.