Kathleen's Adventures

In the few days leading up to Sunmart, it was like I was having déjà vu all over again. Forecasts were predicting record highs for race day, just like Chicago had been. The last two years that I have done the race, the temps were in the 30s at the start and did not warm much from there. This year, however, it would be over 70 at the start and would quickly rise to a record high of 82, with 80-90% humidity. Despite the lovely outlook, I was still excited. Robert, Shawn, and I all met up at Ruthie’s house early Saturday morning and rode up to Huntsville together. We were questioning why in the world we were going, with the weather so bad, but then all decided we were going because we knew other people were going and we don’t like to miss out on things, however bad they may end up. We quickly found our Houston Fit group as well as a few people from Houston Racing. Turns out we had a pretty big group. Sissy, a friend who is doing IMAZ with us next April was also there. I talked her into th...

Pre-Race I came into this race feeling unprepared compared to last year. I had just run (sort of) the Chicago marathon three weeks earlier and I had trained for that for four months. I knew I had a decent running base, but was not sure that mattered if I blew up before even getting to the run. I had not swum 2000 meters since my Ironman in April, I think. I did not hit the pool until a few weeks before Ironstar – I was exhausted from training for Chicago and just could not get motivated to do it. I also knew I could “cram” the last week or two there. I had also had mono much of the four months leading up to the race, so I was fortunate to even be doing the running that I was. The swimming and biking were just hard to find the time and energy for. Biking is where I really felt unprepared compared to last year. Running Chicago meant not biking two of the four weekends before Ironstar, and 48 miles was the farthest I had ridden in the two months before the race. I did manage to swim four ...

I started training for the Chicago Marathon in June, four months ago, just six weeks after Ironman Arizona. Many of our training runs were before 5am to try to shield ourselves from the Houston Summer heat. If I had a dime for every time I told myself “just think how great it will be in Chicago” when things were getting tough, hot, or just way too early, I’d be rich now. However, I am now trying not to dwell on that prospect since weather is something I just have no control over. I’m not telling myself I wasted four months of training and sacrifice to go out and run over an hour slower than I wanted to. I’m trying not to remind myself I was in better shape for this marathon than any other and that I have trained harder for this one than any of my previous five marathons. I’m not telling myself I failed either, because on that day I did the best I could given the circumstances that presented themselves. I (along with Karen and Charmaine) happened to make several right decisions about th...

This race report is unlike any other I have written before. My contribution to the race was swimming a whopping 200 meters, but I feel like my participation in the race was more important than almost any other race I have ever done. It is up there with my Ironman - my Ironman being up there only because I raised $4200 for the American Cancer Society. However, this race yesterday taught me far more about cancer and the people it affects.My niece, Molly (9) completed her first triathlon yesterday, and my sister, her husband, and I competed in the adult relay. The adult race was a 200m swim/6 mile bike/2 mile run. The kids race was a 100m swim/3 mile bike/1 mile run. The swim was a pool swim, so it was seeded by race number, fastest swimmers first, slowest last. I volunteered for packet-pickup the day before where I met Stephanie and Greg Johnson for the first time. They truly are amazing people. I had noticed on the registration list that Stephanie was racer #1. I thought that was so a...

The months before I do not remember the exact date that I signed up for IMAZ 07, but I know it was towards the end of April. There was a delay in registration opening up and I checked the site hourly for about 2 weeks after the 2006 race to see when the 2007 date was and when registration would open up. I was half hoping it would be after my first half ironman in mid-May, but when it opened in late April, I signed up that day because most American Ironmans fill up the same day the registration opens, a year before the race. It turns out the race did not fill up until the end of summer, but I did not want to risk not getting in. Pushing the “submit payment” button was one of the scariest things I had ever done, but it began just over 11 months of the most amazing journey I have been on. I went on to do my first half ironman in Panama City in May and finished knowing I had a lot of work to do, but I was ready, not scared, to take on the challenge ahead of me. I did one more half ironman ...