The Dress Rehearsal

6am ready to go!

Well this morning was the Iron Girl "Dress Rehearsal" its an opportunity to try on the event "for size" so to speak. I am glad I went! WOW! Is all I can say. IRON GIRLS GO HARD! There were some newbies and some Vets you could tell they had last year's swim caps on. But because I had to go to work I only planned to do the .684 miles swim others did the run afterwards and/or the bike. The oldest person was 8-0 freaking years old!!! 80! last year at 799 she did the course in 2 hours and 34 minutes!?!?! How?!?! Imma have to trip her if I can catch her! lol

The event was supposed to start at 6am & me being "Due Diligence" got there at 4:45am! Better early than late and I wanted a good parking space so I could get out! Needless to say I was the FIRST participant there! I met the organizer of the event and boy did he remember me! More on that later. lol Well it was pitch black outside but since I am a morning person I was ok with that. In fact I went to bed early and was up by 3:30am and forced myself to rest but just got up and headed out. I wasn't nervous maybe anxious because I was like where the hell are the rest of the Iron Girls?!?! Eventually they started to trickle in and I went to meet the group at the Team in Training table. I got my suit and I had my fingers crossed it fit since I have gained like 20 (or more...more....) pounds since I handed in my form.

I decided not to wear their suit and kept on my bathing suit then EVERYONE who SAID they were going to do the same thing slowly started putting on their TnT suit!!! Only 1 girl didn't and I guess that was because she did not reach within $200 of her minimum.

By the way a note on my friends...YALL ROCK...like really R-O-C-K!!!! I went from like $300 like 2 weeks ago to... as of 5 minutes ago... $1,210.00!!! Only $90 away from my minimum!!! Really less than that because I have some cash and 2 checks still to be added! That's amazing! I thank you all for your support!!!

A word on Team in Training... from my site MY TEAM IN TRAINING PAGE CLICK HERE Most of you know from my TnT site I had a 2 part-er reason for doing the event and one of those reasons was my Linesister (meaning she is my sorority sister and we came in together at the same time) Jacintha (I asked if it was cool to use her name she said yeah) She just beat cancer's ass after a few month of chemo and I felt this was a great cause to support in her honor. There were several times during that more than half a freaking mile swim I had to tell myself Jacintha beat cancer surely you can swim a little bit further! I did the Avon breast cancer walk in memory of 2 family members that died from breast cancer and that felt good but this feels good in a different way. Like she kicked cancer's ass I mean WOW!
So I kept kicking the only down side to that is I got a lil choked up thinking about someone her age having to battle cancer... but TnT helps to keep you grounded on why you are doing this and why you are pushing yourself to the max for a good reason a real reason.

I was the last one in the water for TnT by the way because the organizer stopped me to tell the crowd I was the first one there and talk about being in the spot light yall know I dont mind but I pretended to be coy! I betta be in the website!!! lol a/w he was funny nice guy! They have people that are swim buddies to keep you company and others in canons to help cheer you on and make sure you don't drift too far off the path. One thing I can say it took me 50 minutes I was shooting for 45 minutes and I didn't stop. Plenty of people took rest breaks on the cannons you just kinda hang on. So I am proud I got in done going slow and steady! Race day we only get 1 hour so I need some more water time and to lose some damn weight!!! To make sure I am in, in under 1 hour!

Well I made it to work and even got a parking space. :-) Good karma! This weekend I am working out with Charles my personal trainer doing running and biking around the mall and Sunday I will ride the Iron Girl course I hear its hill-y! Well 17.5 miles 7am on a Sunday sounds likes a good way to start the day!

I'll check back soon! Thanks again for all your support!!!

c~