six days and counting…

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…

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