It’s a strange feeling as my workouts drastically decrease in intensity and length…   it feels so counterintuitive to slow down, when only two days from now, I’ll be giving it all I’ve got.  Muscles resting, thoughts percolating, hopes and deep wisdom integrating.

It’s like the calm before a storm.

There’s really nothing left to do to prepare.  You’ve battened down the hatches, brought the flower pots in, stocked up on groceries.  Now it’s time to savor that one little patch of deep blue sky, the smell of ozone in the air, the way the trees bow down as the wind picks up, the cows calling in their young…    and breathe.  BREATHE.

It’s time to let go and let the universe take over.

As I’m gathering everything together that I’ll need for the big day, it almost feels as though I’m getting ready to go off into battle…  not in some scary Hunger Games kind of way, but in a peaceful warrior woman kind of way… I’m realizing what a BIG DEAL this really is.  I think the experience will change me in ways I can’t really put into words at the moment. 

Throughout history, natives from all over the world have adorned their bodies and their horses and their weapons with paint, tattoos, piercings, and symbolic scarrings as a ritual before heading off into war or for ceremonial purposes, in order to build up the spirit…  and lately I’ve been feeling called to do the same.  Now’s obviously not the time for a new tattoo, so I brought my bike in from the garage…  and while I don’t have sacred paint made of flower petals, roots, and berries, I do have a Sharpie.

It’s nothing fancy.  It’s simple and rough around the edges and imperfect, just like me.  And heck, it’ll probably wash off if it rains.  

But it’ll serve as my focal point during the nineteen miles that I fear the most.

Much like a drishti helps in finding one’s balance during a tricky yoga pose, or a candle across the room aids a woman giving birth… it’ll ground me in my power, keep me present, and remind me of the reasons of why I’m there.  It will indeed build my spirit, my ferociousness, my desire to go all the way.  

Today I took my bike in to the shop and had Allen, my local bike wizard, give her a good lookin’ over…  he cleaned and fiddled with the chains, oiled the brakes, pumped up the tires, tightened up the seat in the optimum position for the race…  he armed me with a spare tube and tools and another water bottle…  and he taught me how to change a tire.  And then he sent me out the door with an encouraging, “Have fun, kid.”  

Yes, if I get  a flat, I will now know what to do (that’s if I remember everything).

But perhaps the most valuable thing he did was remind me to have fun.  To not let my nerves (which are plentiful at the moment) get the best of me…  and go at it with an eye for adventure.  This is not something I’ve necessarily forgotten…  but lately, it’s been pushed aside by what if this happens, and what if that happens.

Fear can be a nasty booger if you let it.  I’m going to say that again…   IF YOU LET IT.  It seems to me that fear is going to be there no matter what…  but I, for one, don’t want to be defined or led by it.  I can’t control the weather or the lake’s water temperature or the wave I’m in or even if I happen to run over a nail in the first mile of the bike leg.   And in the meantime, there are so many more important things to think about…  

Like oh-my-god-I’m-really-doing-this…  like a warm breeze on my face while I’m pedaling and running through gorgeous territory…  like the companionship of complete strangers…  like the moxie erupting within me with each mile that I encounter, and how that will spread into other parts of my life…  like envisioning what it will be like to cross the finish line…    like the sandy bottom of Lake Lanier between my toes.  

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the decision that something else is more important.”
~Ambrose Redmoon

Yesterday when I received the Iron Girl participant guide, I discovered that I will be beginning the race in the 6th wave.  

The good news is that my swim cap will be purple, which I consider a good omen, since it’s my favorite color and it is thought to bring peace of mind and spiritual groundedness.  But the stinky news is that I’ll be starting twenty minutes later than the friends who will be meeting me there.  Who knows what that means in the grand scheme of things…  but the reality is…  I have to come back to me.  I have to grab onto the reasons once again that I chose this adventure.  I have to dig deep into my own inner resources, and not rely on anyone else to see me through this.

Well, damn.

For a little while yesterday, this threw me into a panic.  All of the emails from my friends trying to make this seem light and fun and fluffy seemed all for naught.  I had been comforted by the all-for-one, one-for-all idea…    only to discover that it really does come down to my own strength and will and desire to do this thing.  

Last night, I was like a spoiled kid who didn’t get what she wanted…  I moaned and groaned about it, and I admit, even got a little weepy.  And this morning when it was time for my training session, I really wondered if it was even worth it…   I thought, this is impossible-  there’s no way I can do this.  Might as well stay home.

Well, something got me out there.  Of course, letting go of the resistance was much like prying a tasty rawhide away from a dog…

But I did it.

And it was all on my own accord.  No one talked me into it, no one was there to cheer me on, no one was there to coax me into actually enjoying it…

And I loved it…  every single second of it.

Maybe I can do this.  Perhaps the solitude of the experience will make it that much more powerful for me.  The only thing pushing me on will be my own WILDNESS, and the curious anticipation of what’s around the next corner.  And you know what?  

Maybe, just maybe, that’ll be enough.  

I created this Dreamwheel last weekend during the super full moon...

I’ve decided that this week, I’m going to blog the countdown to Sunday’s triathlon… much like I did a few months ago during my cleanse…   both to share in this journey, and let’s be honest, to keep me accountable to the shifts in my brain that are required right now as we get closer and closer to the big day.  Because truth is, I’M TERRIFIED.  And that’s probably a pretty big understatement.  I’ve done a lot of training to get my body as ready as it will ever be…  it’s time to focus on my mind and my heart.  

You see, I don’t do these things “part of the way” or half-assed…  or atleast I don’t want to.  But what that means about me is that I obsess.  I try to be prepared for anything.  I overanalyze what it’ll mean to be there.  I think too much.  It means that I’m committed and super-focused…  but that I pretty much forget everything else… and lord help me if I stumble, because then I take it way too personally.

This week, I’m ready to challenge those things about me… I want to approach this race with openness, clarity, and yes, commitment, but also a sense of ease and nonattachment, so that I can let go and just have fun with it.  I want to be PRESENT for it.  Afterall, this is an adventure.

Today, I received the Iron Girl participant guide….  can I just say….  WOW?!  It’s a pretty intimidating read.  There are so many things one can do, and that I can see myself doing completely by accident, that would mean getting disqualified.  I thought my greatest concern might be finishing each section within the time limits, but it turns out that I also need to be concerned with staying in a single-file line,  four-bike lengths behind the person in front of me during the biking part (which in my mind seems impossible with over a thousand participants, but I suppose this’ll work itself out!), and with not helping others who might be having a difficult time along the course (pardon the pun, but I had assumed that helping one another and the community created with such an event is par for the course).  

Instead of picturing drowning, hypothermia, 19 miles of grueling hills, impatient pro-triathletes wanting me to hurry up, and flat tires, I’d like to picture patience and going with a flow fueled by adrenalin and self-honor, befriending and being inspired by the pro-triathletes, and taking one hill at a time and getting off my bike to walk ‘em if need be, which all in all, will simply give me the opportunity to snap pictures of the landscape around me, which is apparently quite beautiful.  I certainly don’t want to miss the views. 

And yet it’s a race.  And there’s a finish line.  And time limits.  And disqualification.  And really, I can’t control any of that.  

Today, all I can do is SURRENDER.  

To my own power as a wild woman, who takes things at her own speed, and defines success not by the medal she wears around her neck, but by the amazing sense of fulfillment that comes with trying something new and exciting and challenging.  

To embarking on the adventure, even if I don’t have all my ducks in a row…

To believing in myself, and trusting that this body can do more than I ever gave it credit for (it’s already proven that to me countless times, and it’s time to acknowledge that!).  

To stretching beyond these limits I’ve set up in my noggin around what I can and can’t do (there’s simply no room here for can or can’t…  there’s only room for I’ll-do-my-best).  

And to fully being present no matter the outcome (whether or not I cross the finish line and get to “officially” call myself an Iron Girl, I will have showed up for myself and taken the risk, which always, ALWAYS means success). 

Thank you all for being my witnesses and my muses…