Thank You....

To say that this year has been a roller coaster of emotions would be an understatement. This year was a year of firsts and with that always comes heightened emotions.

Good, bad and ugly ( crying).

Although technically its my 12th year racing-from sprint tri's to 24 hour bikes-2017 was my 1st year. The first year with a body that worked (most of the time). I have known for 15 years that something was wrong but assumed it was my fault ( more on that later). This is the first year that I had the ability to run at 100%. No battle fatigue after a 5k. No sleeping 48 hours after a bike. No aches and pains that would last for weeks after a run. No blinding migraines that would last for days. No insomnia that would keep me wide awake when I was so tired I wanted to cry. Real training. The way I assume most of the world trains.

So IMAZ in  a few days will be a 1st too. I have never ever raced a race. I have no idea what to expect. It's scary AND so exciting!!!

I'd like to thank those who helped get me here. It may be a shock at first. It gets better.

Thank you first and foremost to my mother. The woman who told me my whole life that I was worthless and would amount to nothing at best. Because of you I suffered from horrible self esteem my entire life. I believed I was garbage and therefore let people treat me like it. I believed I was a fat ass lazy bitch so I always assumed I was in the wrong or my thoughts were lies. Because of you I was forced to look at the other side of the coin. The dark and scary place I had never seen before. The one that says I am a GOOD person. I am NOT worthless. Although the first 30 years of my life sucked because I believed you, the next 70 years will not. Had you not treated me as terribly as you did, I may not truly appreciate how great it is to feel GREAT. So... thank you.

Thank you to the 1st Dr I saw 12 years ago who told me I should "try a smaller plate dear" when I asked why I was working out 7 days a week and gaining weight.
To the 2nd Dr who told me to spread out my workouts. Instead of biking on Saturday for 6 hours try doing 1 hour a day. I think she missed the point.
To the next Dr who told me I wasn't built for running and triathlon. She said I should stick with swimming and said "It's unfortunate you just have those East German genes though." WTAF???
To the next Dr who told me I was drinking to much water. Thank you for letting me pay you $75 co pay to se a specialist for that answer. Seriously life changing info **eye roll**
Thank you all for your hard work trying to find an answer. I really appreciated it.

Thank you to my 1st nutritionist. the one who told me after 2 months of working with her that I was lying to her. the math didn't add up. Calories in vs calories out would put me 10 pounds lighter. Therefore I was lying. Yes.. I love making barely enough money to live and paying you $100 a week so I can lie to you.
Thank you to the next Nutritionist who was so excited to work with me until it got hard. She just stopped calling me back and was a no show at out last appointment. I appreciated that too.
Thank you to the next one who had me down to 500 calories per day. I actually gained 2 pounds a week with that one. That was awesome. She called me a liar too.

Thank you to the coworker who told me " With all you food limitations why aren't you thin?" He wasn't the only one to say this. About half a dozen former coworkers have said this to me. Funniest part of these incidents was that  they were all men who were fat asses and so out of shape they could hardly tie their own shoes. That was lots of fun. Thanks guys for making a girl with low self esteem feel real good about herself.

Thank you to the body worker who asked if I was the only one in my age group because I was hardly in shape enough to possibly win my age group.

Because of all of these people I pushed on. I had 2 choices. Let this shit consume me or move on to the next step. Thankfully I made the right decision.

That then led me to the next people I would like to thank.

My current NP. I went to see her 20 months ago. I was in tears. I was shaking. I had the same high hopes I always had seeing a new PCP but history told me to be cautious. She was the first Health Care worker to grab me by the shoulders and say " give me the next year of your life and I WILL find an answer. I don't have the answer now but I will find it. It just may take time. This is complicated.". I will never forget that day. AND... she was true to her word.

Thank you to the amazing Mary Knott for believing in me. She saw something in me that I couldn't see. Ability. I can't tell you how much your friendship and determination to get me to this damn start line healthy and HAPPY means to me. Never in a million years did I ever think I would be able to be coached the way I am being coached. I can say with 100% certainty that I would never be in the shape I am in at this point in time if it were not for you. I tear up whenever I think about it. And then sometimes I laugh....show me on this taco where it hurts....

My Squad... You know who you are. The rest are just #basic.

Thank you Hillary Biscay and Michele Landry for creating such and amazing Team with SFQ and HPB. Again...never in a million years did I think I would ever be able to be a part of something this amazing. When HPB was first created I told B and he said "Maybe someday when we know you can give 100%". Who knew then that that day would ever come. Certainly not me. I've made some amazing friends who have been amazingly supportive. I am a lucky girl.

Thank you to my coworkers. The guys who would roll up on me at 4am while I was running while blaring "Eye of the Tiger" on your PA systems. The ones who would let me cry when I felt like dying or was just plain tired. The ones who encouraged me while I was running at stupid fast speeds on the treadmill at 3am. The ones who picked me up 16 miles from home on their way into work so I could run point to point and then have a nice Americano waiting for me! Thank you to the ones who I could walk into their offices and say "can I just cry for a minute" and not bat a lash. Thank you to Sgt who introduced me to his brother Olympian Danny Lopez who hooked me up with so much gear for run training this year it was amazing!! I could go 2 weeks without doing laundry.

Thank you Emily for allowing me to make sometimes crazy slow payments to you so I could have me dream bike. I love my Dimond so much. I hope you realize that you helped make a dream come true for me. Thanks to your kindness.

Thank you Nicole for understanding that my body is a bit messed up and sometimes I just need someone who will tell me what I already know but don't do. Like stretch and when I am done...stretch more. Then put me back together after I break myself down. Thank you Dr Olsen for the multiple times a week adjustments when my hips were just not cooperating.

Finally...Thank you B. I don't know what kind of karmic debt I had to pay to find you and I don't know how to possibly ever be able to give back to you as much as you have given me over the last 10 years. It could not have been easy watching and going through some of the shit you went through. Thank you for believing that when shit was going sideways and I was acting way "off" it wasn't me it was my body and brain all out of whack. Honestly I believe most guys would have run. Thank you for not. Thank you for wanting me to chase my dreams. Thank you for making sure I have everything I need at all times. We don't make a lot of money but you always sacrifice what you want for me to have what I want. When we are scraping pennies together you come up with something funny to say while being encouraging. Usually along the lines of " Just get me a 11:33 Ironman" or "Make sure you ride sub 6 centuries on your million dollar bike from now on".

T minus4 days