There are many people in my life I am thankful for. To my friends and family...I love and appreciate you!
Kim, Laura and I
Me, Jessie, Timmers and Andy (and Squirt!)
So...it has been quite awhile since I have blogged. Lets just say life has been a LITTLE stressful lately. And when life gets stressful, I tend to freak out. Thankfully, I have AMAZING friends who know just what to say to me to bring be back to reality. A little shout out to Jen, Natalie, Tiffany, Jessi, Kim, Meghan, Abi, Kya and Christina for being my support system. I love you girls and I promise I will settle down soon :)
One little girl who has helped to remind me of what is really important is my "niece" Delaney. She is my BFF's daughter and I am her "unofficial" FAVORITE auntie! (And we all know I LOVE to be the favorite!) I spent time with D last weekend and we had a little photo shoot. I am a firm believer in the self portrait picture, taken by one of the people in the picture. I love to do smiling pictures, followed by, obviously, silly face pictures. This is something I do with my students too, and let me just say that sometimes kids make the funniest faces!! I love it!
After I took a few pictures of us, Delaney decided that SHE wanted to take a self portrait picture. So, here it is...HILARIOUS! Short arms apparently make for an extreme close-up!
Delaney and I had a blast playing together! Let's just say that it was GOOD to laugh! I am so grateful for my fawesome friends and family! Life gets hectic sometimes, but it will always work itself out! Sometimes a little laughter is just what the doctor ordered.
Last Sunday evening, Jessi, Roger, Steve and I headed to Bear Lake for an open water swim. Emma came along for the fun too! I don't have a wetsuit, so Kim was gracious enough to let me borrow hers! We got in a great workout, and of course had tons of fun! I even got to practice drafting after Jessi for about 15 seconds! It was awesome! After the swim, RT gave us some tips on running our bikes into transition with one hand (something we had just talked about at our Tri Fusion meeting). I am SO going to learn how to do this for next season! It will help take precious seconds off my transition times :) After the swim, we SURPRISINGLY ended up at Twigs for a majorly yummy meal! I had a great time friends! Can't wait to do it again ;)
I was lucky enough to spend a week as a counselor for a Senior High church camp on Twin Lakes in Idaho. It is a camp that I went to when I was little and have been a leader at for 10 summers. I hold this place near and dear to my heart. I love spending the week focusing on God and prayer in one of his most beautiful creations. It was an amazing week with good friends, awesome campers, and great memories! Here are some of my favorite parts...
Almost exactly 1 year ago, I completed my first triathlon. It was Valley Girl 2007 and it was a total blast. I had trained for about 10 months with friends, and the race truly was the celebration of all I had accomplished during that time. The race was such a great experience that it led to me joining Tri Fusion and continuing to do races this year. Valley Girl 2008 was my 4th race this year, and my 5th race ever.
Since Valley Girl was the only race I did last year, it was obviously my "A" race for this year. It was the only race where I could truly show improvement and compare times. This being said, I was SOOOOO nervous for this race because I really, really wanted to improve my time from last year. Last year I swam to the best of my abilities, used my friend's husband's mountain bike, and walked the entire run course. This year, I have been really working on my swimming (it is my best of the three!), I got a speedy fast tri bike, I learned how to run, I completely changed my eating so I am now "fueling" my body correctly, and I have lost 40 pounds. In my heart, I knew I would do better than last year, but the question was how much.
Now flash to last Sunday at 7:45 a.m. I did not sleep great the night before, I had to get up at 4:30 a.m., my stomach was in total knots, and I thought I might throw up. Totally ready to race, right!?! My dear friends Christina, Jen, Laura, Rhonda and Ali were racing with me, and it was so nice to hang with them before the race started. This race was a little different than all of the others I have done this year because Jessi and Tiff weren't racing. These two ALWAYS help get me pumped for the race and offer me serious words of encouragement, so it was hard not having them there in the morning. But I knew they were coming to cheer and I would see them soon enough :) Luckily, Jen was there to mother me and calm me down! She is truly gifted at this! Here Jen and I are before the swim start, acting like we are totally ready to rock this race!
When the race started, Jen and I decided to go for it and start on the inside of the horse shoe. I was a little nervous we might get run over, but we thought we were hard core enough to start with the other serious swimmers. As soon as I started swimming, I was able to settle into my steady pace. My stroke felt strong, and I felt like I was cruising. As I turned to my right to breath, I saw Jen swimming right along side me. We stayed that way for almost the entire swim, and it was such a comfort to have her right at my side. We could have held hands if we wanted to :) When I came out of the water, I was surprised to see most green caps still swimming. Out of 65 girls in my swim heat, I was 13th out of the water! Really!?! I ended up beating my time from last year by 1 second, but the swim was actually 135 m longer. Not bad!
Next I headed to my bike. I hopped on with minimal effort, and started the bike course. Right away, I heard Roger in the mega phone, and I immediately started laughing. I knew it was him when he yelled, "Goooooooo Tricia!" I also heard Jessi, Tiff, Natalie, Greg, Phaedra, Steve and Emma yelling their little hearts out! Hearing my friends cheer for me is one of the best feelings in the entire world! It totally gave me a boost on the bike. It was also a wonderful surprise to hear Laura S., Kim and Joey cheering out on the bike course! It was so sweet of you guys to come out and you spread the cheer love throughout the ride :) Two of my goals on the bike were to stay in aero position as much as possible, and to stay at a steady pace on the flat parts. I worked hard on these goals and was pretty happy with the outcome. I shaved 12 minutes off my bike time from the year before! As I headed into T2, I heard Tiff in the mega phone and again it warmed my heart and got me ready for the run.
Now, I have a few shout outs to take care of. First thanks to Tiffany for coming out to cheer for me and for stealing the bull horn from Roger so I could hear her voice when I needed it! You are SUCH an amazing friend who has been by my side through all of my transformations this year. You and I have both blown our old selves out of the water this year and I have loved going through the process with you and celebrating all of our successes together! I love you lady!
To Greg, Natalie and Steve (I think that is Steve's arm) thanks for coming out to cheer as well. I am always impressed when people come to a race, early in the morning just to cheer! Natalie, I was surprised and ecstatic to see you coming to run me in! Now that was sweet :) You have been such a supportive and dear friend to me and I love you to pieces! I have really enjoyed hanging out with all of you over the past few months, and you are wonderful friends! 
Finally, a HUGE thank you to my fabulous parents! They weren't sure if they were going to make it due to the heat, but they toughed it out and cheered their hearts out! You both have been so supportive of my triathlons and I think you are really starting to get into it :) I am so grateful you came and I LOVED seeing you at the finish line! You guys are terriffic and I love you times a million!