Filled with pride

Yesterday history was made. I was so filled with pride as I witnessed on TV the inauguration of our new president, President Obama. Just to thinking about how far we have come as a country and watching him give his speech the parade and all the other coverage, it gave me chills and I was just bursting with pride. What a day.

I have finally started on a training routine. Last week was my first week and I swam 5 times and actually got my handcycle out of the basement and set it up. It was quite the achievement... I am working with Carmichael Training systems (www.trainright.com) with Mike Durner as my coach on my training for the Sadlers Alaska Challenge. He puts my workout online and I check it off everyday as I do it. I started with 3 1.5 hr rides last week. When I first saw the schedule I thought he was crazy to start with 1.5 hrs and the first ride was challenging but the others 2 were a little better. I have ridden twice this week and am getting the hang of it. Hopefully by July I'll be all set to not only finish the race but feel as though I had trained well and was ready for it. That and not getting attacked by some sort of wildlife is the goal. This week I am stepping it up to 7 swim practices a week and a little more on the handcycle. I think I even get on the treadmill this week.

I have my race schedule mapped out for the rest of the year. I won't go over all of them but it is with the ultimate goal of completing a full triathlon on my own, any distance, but where I do the running portion as a run instead of on a handcycle. I am doing a few half ironman's but they are all as relays and I am usually the swimmer although one I will be biking as well. The full one I am going for is the Chicago triathlon which is in Aug. Hopefully I will feel comfortable running by then. I plan on starting with a few local 5K's once it gets warmer and seeing how it goes. I did just sign up with 2 others for the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon in June. I am again the swimmer and my two other relay members are those that I did the CAF triathlon with last Oct. We affectionately call ourselves 'the greatest relay ever'. Which we are. This is quite the challenging race starting with the swim which includes getting on a boat at 4:30am, riding out to Alcatraz, jumping off the boat at about 6am into freezing water with a huge current and swimming to 1.5 miles to the mainland all the time praying that you out swim the sharks. It's a blast. Once I successfully Escape from Alcatraz (it IS possible , David Lee will move onto the grueling bike course and then pass on the chip to Malcom will run up sand stairs and all around San Francisco to finish up. So why do we do we put ourselves through this torture you may ask. Because the greatest relay team in the world can do anything. That is why. The picture you see above is of my teammates and I at the CAF race. Alcatraz here we come.

I am excited about this race (Alcatraz) in particular because it is during one of Dick's breaks from school after his 1st board exam. So not only will he be with me in San Francisco but we will leave from there for a Hawaiian vacation. Hawaii is one of the places we may have the opportunity to move for Dicks residency so we are anxious to check it out to see if we would like to live there for 5 years. And it's Hawaii, who wouldn't want to go there for a week.

Aside from training, I was in Lake Tahoe for a speech to some Oklahoma bankers last week. I was only there for one night so I didn't get to explore much but I saw the most beautiful sunset from my hotel room. It is so gorgeous there, mountains and a lake, it can't get much better than that.

I just got done with an exhausting swim practice this morning and it's time for me to make my coffee. Until next time, stay warm.