My first Blog

July 2008 I decided to enter the Eagleman 70.3 Triathlon held in Cambridge, MD. In July of 2008 I was starting to come out of a deep depression I had been in for several months. You see in February of 2008 I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. My medication hit full strength in early May and I could not get out of my own way. I started riding my bicycle again with a close friend as exercise is supposed to help with depression symptoms. Plus I needed to prove to myself that I would always be able to move and stay active. In July of 2008 I secretly entered the Eagleman event. I didn't tell my husband, my family, my friends, not a person. It was my secret endeavor to beat this disease through triathlons.



It is now 27 days away. I have much to discuss about my year leading up to this event - however I am scared. I am scared that I am going to disappoint myself if I don't finish, and I feel like the disease will beat me if I can't cross that finish line. I have swam, biked, and ran. The run scares me the most. I haven't trained properly for 13.1 miles. I have focused on swimming, and biking - I figure I can walk if I have to. After competing in my first sprint triathlon several weeks ago, I am now paranoid about the swim. The distance doesn't scare me, the OPEN WATER does. My goal in the next 27 days is to swim as much as possible in the open water. I have to swim like there isn't a bike leg, bike like there isn't a run leg, and run to get acrossed that line to beat this disease.

About 2 months ago I entered the Beach2Battleship half ironman. I entered this just in case so I have a back up plan if something doesn't work out properly for Eagleman. I am worried about the heat, worried about the chop in the river, worried about a mishap or injury which would leave me out of the race - all sorts of things. So I convinced a friend to enter B2B with me, and I now have an additional race to look forward to, this will avoid the low you always experience when you don't have another event planned.

Long story short - for my first blog - I have 2 half iron distance races - and my soul purpose is to finish the races so I can keep moving for life. MS stops you from movement - hell if I am going down without a fight!!!

Thank you for reading.