The Billy the Kid Tombstone Triathlon is held at Sumner Lake State Park in beautiful eastern New Mexico. Because it is in the part of New Mexico where there are frequently only two seasons, hot and windy or cold and windy, I opt to begin the race at 7 AM. Yes, not only am I a participant, I am the race director. We started this race three years ago as a fund raiser for the Fort Sumner Municipal Schools' Athletic program. With the Foxes and the Vixens going to multiple state championship tournaments, the costs to the local district can become overwhelming. We recognize that it is almost impossible to "tap" the local merchants for more than they are already doing, and with 89% of our students in grades 7-12 participating in extra and co-curricular activities (yes, highest in NM and proud of it), we need A LOT of hotel and meal money. The students suggested that since I do triathlons, maybe a triathlon would be a good fundraiser. Three years ago, about 30 people agreed. Last year 53 people agreed. This year over 143 people agreed. I think the Billy the Kid Tombstone Triathlon is here to stay.
Our local Rotary Club has five members, and one of us is in the hospital recovering from a car accident. We needed to raise money for scholarships for high school grads heading to college. We decided to put on a spaghetti dinner. Since I'm the one with a key to the school, and the one with large group cooking skills (something I neglected to keep secret), I cooked dinner for 200 people for Friday night before the triathlon while juggling the packet pickup. If my family had not been willing to pick up the slack.....well disaster would have been much to small a word. Our son came to spend a week of vacation. He's an engineer in a land far away doing something magical to keep the world safe for democracy. Our daughter is a speech pathologist in another county, also she is a five hour drive away. My recently widowed mother-in-law drove seven hours to join in what I am loosely characterizing as "fun" to do the work to make this triathlon and spaghetti dinner come together. My husband took two days off from work at the local gas company. Yeah. I know. I owe, and I owe in so many ways that I will be paying back for a LLLLOOOOONNNNNNGGGGG time. I am saying thank you, and it is not ever going to be enough.
Race morning we are up at the darkthirty hour of 4 AM so Stephen and Les can go put out the signs on the road for the run and bike courses at the lake. I've already given $50 to one of my fellow Rotarians, Bill, and asked him to pick up 20 sacks of ice at Allsups so we can have plenty of ice on the course for sponges, ice water, etc. I hate it when the water is not cold on races, and I wanted people to be refreshed. I'd spent the two weekends previous baking homemade cookies, so those I loaded into my car and headed out to the course. I set up packet pick-up and taught folks how to do body marking (note, I will teach how to do that before 5:30 AM in the future). Also, to break the suspense, I will NEVER be racing in another race where I'm the race director. This is it. I'm done. I left too many people to pick up pieces that they did not know what to do with, and I'm never doing that again. I will race out of town. I'm sad, but I'm starting the grieving now. I love this course, and I'm going to make sure everyone else gets a great race. I'm finished on the course during a competitive event. The good news is that since I've said it publicly, all of you can stop plotting the intervention you were talking about doing.
The caliber of race participants was staggering. At one point I looked at a table in the cafeteria and saw one young man who is training at the US Olympic training camp in Colorado, and two under 23 athletes that will be ranked in the top 10 in the USAT national ranking this year. They were eating spaghetti in our school cafeteria and had a second brownie. I liked it that I was looking at future Olympians eating in my cafeteria at the school. That was super nifty neato. Being on the course with people who are so speedy and swift was amazing too. You should check out the race results at Chasing3. Angie and her crew did an insane job of managing the timing, set up, and taking care of all of the stuff necessary that I failed to do.
My race, oh, am I supposed to talk about MY RACE? I should tell you that I swam the WRONG swim course and did a 1/2 mile swim instead of the 400 meter everyone else in my division did. I could feel bad about that since it means I got 4th in the Athena division, except that I did my 1/2 mile in 35 minutes and that is the BEST half mile swim time I've ever had. I did it almost all free style and I never had to do the backstroke. I never panicked, and I had no trouble sighting the buoys. I am stoked. My bike was not bad. My run was poky, but it was hot, and I know I drop time significantly in the heat. I did have a negative split on the run because there were icy cold sponges on the run course at the 5K and 10K turn arounds! YEAH for ice. I just packed my bra and went on the way. I had a great second half of the run because I was not so hot.
EXCUSES for Why I've not Been Updating
I've had a totally crummy spring with some health problems, and my training has been bitterly poor. Migraines have never been in my health experience, but this spring semester I've had periods of time where I've had migraines that lasted as long as three weeks. I had a period of three months where I had only eight days without a migraine. I can tell you that training of any sort with a migraine is not a good idea. Not that I did not try it out...... I did, and it was not pretty. Vomit is never an attractive look on a woman. When you are not training, it is hard to be competitive and hard to have wonderful, uplifting, and improving tales to tell. I've not had any of those, and it has made me sad. I've not wanted to be a downer, or a whiner in the public blogoshere, but here I am sharing my whiner pants to the world. Sigh.
What I can tell you is that I have continued to compete, even in my limited trained fashion. It gives me hope, it gives me some reason to continue to dream that healing is out there somewhere in my future. I just could not give up because of the pain. It was not allowed in my "rules", so I've done some races. I did the following races this spring:
- Presidents' Day Duathlon at White Sands on February 18th;
- Mesilla Valley Triathlon on April 1st;
- organized and ran in a trail run here in Fort Sumner on April 14th (fundraiser for Rotary Scholarships-- those darned kids REALLY like college in Fort Sumner);
- Coyote Carrera Tri on April 21st; did Spring Fling on April 22nd;
- Shiprock 1/2 marathon on May 5th;
- Jay Benson Tri on May 13th:
- Billy the Kid Tombstone Triathlon on June 9th.
Hugs,
Patricia
Sorry to hear about the migraines Patricia. You are such an inspiration. Your devotion to your students is obvious, and commendable. Hope to run into you again at a race some time soon. For now, I just wonder, how on earth do you do all that you do? I'm exhausted just thinking about it!
ReplyDeleteyour followers would love an update please
ReplyDeletewell, I've gained all my weight back and then some. How are you doing Patricia?
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