Blow Out

Ok, so this is a really embarrassing story about my first "Brick" workout.  A brick is when you first bike, then run, or swim then run or swim then bike....you get the picture.  My first brick was scheduled for last Saturday and I was nervous and excited about it.  We were going to bike for an hour then run for twenty minutes.  I loaded up my bike, got Carissa to her tweenage babysitter's house, and made sure I got to the meeting place right on time.  Perfect.  Nicole, my coach, tells us to always check our tire pressure before setting off.  I thought, well, they feel pumped up, but I'd better check like she says.  So I borrow a pump and try to shove it down onto the valve of my back tire.  I hear air escaping so I jiggle and wiggle it until it comes off, then try to shove it down again.  Once more I hear air escaping.  "Can someone else try this?" I ask.  Someone else tries it.  "By the way, you really shouldn't jiggle the pump off of your tire valve," says our team captain, "You could tear your tube that way." Ok, I thought.  So then we still hear air escaping and we get someone else to try their pump on my back tube.  Jon comes over and says, "It sounds like your tube is ripped around your valve."  Shit!! Are you serious!! I can feel the heat coming to my face and I'm starting to get really embarrassed as everyone is now gathered around my busted tube.  "Impromptu tire changing session!!" says our team mentor.  Ok, I can do this, I'm thinking. I get the back tire off no problem.  I get the tube out, yep, it's ripped around the valve and I haven't even been on the road yet.  Stupid stupid stupid!!!  So I get my spare tube out of it's box and start putting it into the rim.  It won't fit!! Are you kidding me?  Apparently my spare tube had the wrong valve and wouldn't fit into the hole in my rim.  I'm feeling really disappointed and embarrassed.  I have to go home.  No brick workout for Catherine.  And the worst part was feeling like such a poser.  I have this awesome bike I've ridden maybe five times, I have a brand new bike rack

that everyone has commented on, I just bought "tri" shorts at the running shop, but I can't even pump up a tire.  Wow, what a loser, the voices keep telling me.  That morning I went for an hour long run instead, and the next day I did a brick by myself.  I think my disappointing morning has really convinced me to workout all the harder and with more dedication.  No more skipping practices for me.  I don't want to be a poser, I want to be the real thing: an athlete.  

Shout Out!

I'm giving a shout out to a few recent donors: Thank you to my cousin Sandy, long time friend, Susan, pre-school teacher, Sandy,  my friend, Suzi, Aunt Haydee, and my Nana.  Your donations have raised my total to $755!!!!!  I've said it before, but I feel so blessed by all of your contributions.  Just thinking about your faith in me puts me in the mood to really burn up the track tonight!  By the way, whether I'm supposed to be going easy, medium or fast around the track, I have been regularly running about 30 seconds faster every time.  I got my bike fit to my dimensions at my fav. bike shop, Ascent Cycling, and they are letting me demo some women specific seats.  I am a lot more comfortable on the bike now.  Thank you, Patrick!  I'm still really slow in the water, but I think my technique is getting better, and I'm not getting those panic attacks anymore.  I'm having my beer tasting and bbq fundraiser this Friday, hopefully a few people will come.  I'm also putting a bunch of old equipment I don't use anymore up for sale on Craig's List.  I'm very confident I will make my next goal of $850 by July 21st.  Thanks for all of your support!! 

If you would like to help out my fundraising effort for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, please go to my website:  http://pages.teamintraining.org/rm/oktobfst09/cwarrenrzk  or send a check made out to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to me at my address.  

Epiphany

Today I had an epiphany about my fundraising efforts.  As you probably can tell from reading older posts, I am scared to death about raising $2,400 in a few months.  Well, today, I got knocked upside the head by a voice, "It's ok if you have to pay the entire balance by yourself, it will be wonderful sacrifice, and you will be blessed."  And I thought, huh, you know, I think that's right.  Why don't I stop bothering and nagging all of my friends, family, neighbors, and people I don't even know, and just let them be blessed to give, just as I will be blessed to give? I am going to continue to fundraise, but I'm not going to be gripped by fear anymore.  

If you would like to help my fundraising for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, you can go to my fundraising website:            http://pages.teamintraining.org/rm/oktobfst09/cwarrenrzk 

Or you can send me a check made out to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.  

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off......

Ok, after that last really depressing post, I thought I'd follow up with something a little more upbeat.  Before I even conceived of the idea of becoming a "Team in Training" member and spending all of my time training for a triathlon, I had another goal: BolderBoulder.  I think I signed up for BolderBoulder in January, and even though I had only run two 5k races, I started training for this 10k road race undaunted.  I completed the BolderBoulder in about 71 minutes and had a fantastic time; it was a blast!  There were more than 50,000 participants and 26 bands playing all along the route.  Not to mention friendly neighbors handing out Doritos and cupcakes on their lawns, ringing cowbells, spraying us with waterhoses and inviting us to their Slip 'n Slides.  We ended at Folsom Field at Colorado University.  I felt like an Olympian as I entered the stadium and started passing people left and right as I made my way to the finish line.  It was such an incredible feeling knowing how hard I had trained for that moment and finished strong.  Here are a couple of pictures from race day:

               Shane and Carissa, ready to wait for me at the finish line.

    Here's one of the professional wheel chair racers from the event, they were really fast.

    These soldiers ran the whole way, then did about 50 push-ups before crossing the finish line.

News from the fundraising front: I have a couple of great ideas for making my goal.  I'm selling breakfast burritos at Shane's work, complete with sign up sheet and cost per burrito. I'm going to have a neighborhood garage sale where, hopefully, my neighbors will just give me their valuable junk to sell.  Finally, and this one I'm really excited about, I got a brewery to agree to donate beer for a beer tasting.  Wish me luck as I try to put all of this together in about a month!

Set Back

To say that my triathlon training and fundraising has gotten off to a bumpy start would be an understatement. After my first week of training, which were really about just getting to know swim drills and mechanics of a bike, I got the stomach bug. I had to sit out for an entire week because I was too weak to participate. That was disappointing, but even more disappointing than that has been my fundraising efforts. I keep thinking of awesome fundraising scenarios in which I set up a bake sale table and, voila! I have a thousand dollars in the bank. Or maybe I could sell something at the Skysox stadium? No, I checked into it, can't do it. Maybe a barbecue in which I invite all of my friends and neighbors and they donate lots of money? Too much out of pocket expense. I know! I'll sell donuts at Shane's work!! We have lots of friends there and they'll surely empty their pockets for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. I put together an information board, set out two boxes of donuts and a mayonnaise jar with a slit cut in the lid and waited for the dollars to roll in. The next day Shane's friend told him that at 9 pm there were two empty boxes of donuts and a handful of change in the bottom of the jar. We didn't even break even. I'm wondering how I'm going to raise the $2,000 balance of my goal in just a few months. I wonder if I should even keep going. There's no way I can pay for the balance out of my pocket. Let's do some math: I have raised $465 so far. I have $1,935 left to go. I just need 77 people to donate $25. Even less than that considering I'm still going to have a "craigslist sale" of all of my old baby things.

Thank you to all of you who have helped me to my goal so far, I can not tell you how blessed I am by your generosity.

If you would like to help me reach my goal for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, please click on my fundraising webpage: http://pages.teamintraining.org/rm/oktobfst09/cwarrenrzk, or send me a check made out to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Thanks for all of your support, monetary and otherwise!