Mirage

This post is titled "Mirage" for two reasons:
1) We rode in the Coachella Valley desert this weekend and I thought I saw one.
2) Training for Ironman is like chasing after an elusive vision that sometimes appears to be real, and then just disappears when real life comes into focus.

We made the journey down to the Coachella Valley Music festival to meet up with Derek's brother Chris and Chris's wife Jodi, who are avid music festival goers. While Derek and I really like to see live music, we definitely were not prepared for the effects of a 10 hour drive, 100 degree heat, and 85,000 people. But the music was good, and I truly enjoyed meeting Chris and Jodi. We were able to fit in a 40-mile ride on Saturday. The route was a bit sketchy . . . I pulled it from the web page of a bike store in town, but the directions weren't exact, and the roads were pretty scary until we got out to no-man's land, which was finally big-rig free. 40 miles went by much quicker than it used to, but I was pretty drained by the end of the day. We had every intention of running on Sunday, knowing that we were missing a very long workout at home, but I really wanted to spend what time we could getting to know C&J, so went to brunch at the Cheesecake factory instead. D-Lish!

Today was supposed to be "May Day, May Day!" in that the really tough training regimen kicks in. But the schedule says to take a day off, so I did. I got to catch up with a couple of friends, which has been very difficult to do in the last few months. I will consider myself incredibly blessed to wake up on July 24th with even one friend other than Derek and my family, considering the number of events I've had to turn down lately. What's funny is that I received a chain email last week reminding the reader that "you always have time for coffee with a friend", but really, I don't. I'm looking forward to re-connecting with everyone in August, and actually BEING a friend.

A special thanks to my Mom for reminding me that even my half-ass attempts at work, at home, at training, are better than most people's "full-ass" attempts, and that I'm raising a lot of money to help people who can't do what I'm doing to help themselves. I think she said it better, though. I love you, Mom. Thanks for the support. I couldn't do it without you. And thanks to Jackie, who let me buy her dinner tonight, two months after her birthday, making me feel like I actually am a part of her life even though we haven't caught up in a really long time. It meant a lot to me. And finally, thanks to Katy Ashby for never, ever giving me a hard time about having to train.