I TRI... again.

It was one year ago this week… with great fear and trepidation… that I committed to my first-ever Triathlon.  In retrospect, signing up and paying the entry fee was the easiest part of the journey! 

My initial inspiration came from two good friends who live in different states: Kathy in Kansas and Josie in Indiana. Less than a year prior, Kathy and Josie had never met.  I credit their similar interests (biking and physical fitness), values (family first… always), and ME (their common denominator) for developing a strong sense of friendship with each other after just one fun-filled weekend here in KC!

Kathy, an avid biker, completed her first Triathlon in the summer of 2010.  She knew swimming would be her biggest challenge, which now in my "experienced" opinion, would venture to guess is a high percentage of first-timers biggest fears; it certainly was mine!  The 5k presents a higher level of difficulty for Kathy than it does most… she had a hip replaced several years ago and is not able to run it.  But boy is she a speedy walker!  The 10 mile bike course however, piece of cake… that’s usually just a warm-up for her.

Josie grew up in a physically active family, her Dad opened Indy’s beloved ‘Bike Line’ years ago and her family still runs the successful bike store today.  Josie majored in Physical Education at UIPUI and juggled raising 3 kids, teaching, and working at the family business for most of her adult life.  Faced with turning 50 years old a couple of years back… Josie did not like what she saw, and was even more alarmed at where she saw herself going.  Instead of moaning and groaning about it like most of us do, Josie got up off the couch and changed her life!  30 lbs later (and lighter), she too challenged herself to a Triathlon.  She tore that course up and had it not been for a rookie mistake which penalized her, she would have had a USAT certified finish time!  Go Josie, go Josie, go Josie…

Both Kathy and Josie began to subtly nudge me into believing I too could become a Triathlete.  When it was clear to them I would need more than a gentle nudge, full-on bribery became their strategy, coupled with good-ol’-fashioned guilt! 

Suffice it to say I cave easily when there is a party and good friends involved in the payoff.  Josie promised to come to Kansas City and join me.  Kathy, who had thought she was going to be a ‘one and done’ triathlete, committed to doing another one AND she convinced her 70 year old mother-in-law Judy, her incredibly athletic (just-didn’t-know-it-now-is-an-animal) sister-in-law Heidi as well as her rock-star sister Kim, to join me in losing our triathlon virginity.  They also promised me a rockin party afterwards; what can I say… I’m easy that way.

I won’t bore you with the details (again) of my brutal training.  Most of you were subject to a painstaking barrage of Facebook status updates for months regarding my training.  February through April was me moaning about needing to start training. In May, I finally began training, only to get derailed by gallbladder surgery on the 25^th (my 20^th wedding anniversary taboot!), leaving June wide open to have a case of the “Oh poor me’s”!  July was the month I finally got serious… think about that… I basically trained in one month.  It kicked my ass, but I did it.

And that my friends is the segue I’ve been searching for to bring this story to its point.  Completing last year’s Win for KC (all women’s) Triathlon, was hands down the most empowering thing I have ever done for myself.  I had, according to my surgeon, the 5 characteristics most common to women with gallbladder disease: I was fair, female, fat, fertile and forty (fifty in my case!) The “real” me had every reason in the world to doubt my ability to be successful.  But…

Josie believed in me.  Kathy believed in me.  And there was one more person, who unbeknownst to me until the day of the race… so strongly believed in me, that a miracle happened at the finish line.

Jilly, who most of you know as my dear, dear friend diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic disease a year ago this month, was waiting for me as I crossed over the electronic timer.  There were so many people cheering all of us finishers on; the crowd was truly electrifying.  I was already an emotional mess, a combination of exhaustion and exhilaration, but when I spotted Jill… tears in her eyes approaching me with wide-open arms… I embraced her and kept it together until she spoke these words:

“You inspire me Chrissy, I am so proud of you.  I am going to get better.  I am going to beat this thing.  And I am going to someday complete a Triathlon.”

A truly miraculous change from the way she’d been framing her cancer up to this point.

So here it is again, a mere one week away from sign-up day.  I will always be grateful to Josie and Kathy… they clearly inspired me to believe I could do the impossible.  But it is Jill who is my hero… and the reason I choose, like Kathy, not to be a “one-and-done” triathlete.

We don’t always know who we inspire, and we’re certainly not privy to know why or how; people tend to keep their fears private in our society.  But 5 months of blood, sweat and yes… tears, is nothing to pay in exchange for the opportunity to make a difference in someone’s life.

Inspiration is truly a full-circle phenomenon; by being inspired, we become inspirational.  By being inspirational, someone else becomes inspired.

Jill is holding her own by the way.  She is beautiful, she is strong and she is determined.  And let’s not overlook… inspirational!

If this is your year to be empowered… check out Win for KC Triathlon.  It’s open to 1000 women and sold out in 2 days last year… don’t be late!