I just had to throw out the kudos to my amazing friends who also did the race last weekend.

Jon kicked in a 5th place finish.  Seriously Jon, I am expecting more from you. SHAME!

Nate, who did not really train for the sprint, took the most Swedish Award at 18th.

Jen, who travels with me each and every year to hang out and cheer me on and then get Chipotle afterward, now calls herself #27!  Woot, woot.

Becca, who kicked this bitch Athena style.  Ends up #2.  Way to take it home Becca!

Those are my homies!  Without you guys, it is just not as much fun.  Thanks for making triathlons a social event.

Then, then there are the other people in my life that I train with.  The people that I have shared large chunks of time, blisters, bitching, saddle sores and all the other stuff that comes along with all of a sudden sharing a life with random strangers that happen to become training partners.  These people also…are amazing.

These are the people I work out with MANY times a week.  And all this training, paid off for this collective group of 40 somethings.  Jackie (far right) took 3rd in her age group.  Next in line is Di, who is in my age group and if I didn’t like her so much would HATE her.  She makes me a better racer.  My one bike goal was to stay ahead of her.  She took 2nd in our age group and had the fastest bike split of ALL women, even the pros!  Next, Vicki, this was her first half ironman race and she finished with a smile on her face.  As for my coach in the back, he realized once he was home and analyzing the results that he took 3rd in his age group.

All that said, I am so lucky to have friends, team mates and a supportive family to make this ironman dream come true.

Thank you to all of you.

You get all their kids wanting to do what the adults are doing.  Racing that is…I am guessing the drinking will come later.

So here are the cast of characters who participated this year.

Dunc:  He is 3 and can ride a bike without training wheels.  He stands about 2 feet off the ground, is a touch shy and is FEARLESS.  Yeah, took 4th in his age group.  Yo Yo littlest racer.

Pete:  He’s 6 and runs so fast his legs blur.  He took 3rd in his age group two years ago and is back for more.  He held the bar high for EVERYONE and crossed it, bringing home another 3rd place finish.

KP:  Clearly looking nervous here.  We walked through the transitions so he would know where to go and when it came down to it, he was rock solid.  He took 11th in his age group.

Super Cal:  With his dark eyes and steadfast demeanor took to this race and did not stop.  Coming in 6th in his age group.  At the end, when his twin brother was sad he did not get a metal, Cal gave him his.  I know…seriously!?

PJ:  Coming in strong and looking for perfection, found this year’s race a little more difficult.  Her brother’s bike got caught on hers in the transition area, which caused a little bit of an upset to say the least.  After taking a deep breath, chucking her brother’s bike to the ground and moving past it, she took 12th in her age group.  Way to overcome baby!

Ellie:  One of PJ’s closest friends came to join the fun this year.  Her parents are amazing athletes in their own right but don’t do triathlons.  That said, without even knowing what the hell to do, Ellie kicked in a 4th place finish.  Then she got on her bike and rode another 30 miles to a camp site with her family.

CT:  Wanting nothing more than get a top 3 slot this year.  He and Sam worked hard on trying to swim through the water this year, instead of walking through the water like the majority of the kids.  I think it paid off for both of them.  CT had a good race, he worked hard, tried his best and ended up with a 5th place finish.

Sam:  As one of the veterans of the race, Sam knows the twists and turns well and is extremely skilled at navigating the process.  With a swim stroke as pretty and elegant as a swan, he swooped in to take the 10th place slot.

When it was all said and done this little amazing group of athletes cheered each other on, supported one another and had a wonderful time eating pancakes at the end of the race.

Great job Team So Ty!

3rd place in my age group–15th female overall–78th out of all the men and woman who participated.

PR (personal record) by 6 minutes for a time of 5 hours, 1 minute and 19 seconds.

Many stories and photos about the kids tri and about the rest of my friends to follow soon.

And yes, I had many conversations with my dad along the way.

(photo from last year)

They all want to win so badly, I know there will be some broken hearts in the bunch.  I keep trying to tell them what I tell myself, “race the best race you can, today.”  It took me 4 years of triathlons to get that, to not get so wrapped up in what “place” I was going to get (you never know who will show up that day) and to just do the best I can, race against myself and that will have to be good enough for today.

But they are still young, with many miles to travel before they get that point and that is totally ok.  Hopefully by the time they are 39, they will.

On a side note, I will be racing the 1/2 iron race on Sunday.  It will be the first time my dad won’t be there to kiss me at the finish line, ok he was actually really sick and didn’t come to the finish line last year…but he was still here.

This race will be for him.

I miss you dad and the finish line just won’t be the same without you.

The next Sellke Family Reunion will be in Indiana next August, helping these two kick off their married life right.

Have fun with the wedding planning.  And don’t forget…there is always Vegas!

All our love.

What could better, in the heat of the summer, than getting doused with water from a fire truck?

Not sure you could ask for anything more.

Happy Father’s Day!

While they were away, KP, PJ, my mom and I had breakfast and took off to the cemetery.  Since we haven’t gotten a headstone yet, we decided to grab some rocks and some paint and do a little art therapy for the living.

Then we started walking around the cemetery and back behind the shed, were the caretakers keep stuff and throw other stuff away.

My mom found live plants in a pile of disregarded dead ones (Anne Marie, there were a few plant stands there too).  KP found an old rusted out dragon fly and PJ put together bouquets of weed-flowers.

When we put it all together my mom said, “Your dad would have loved doing this.”  I said, “Well, he wouldn’t have loved doing the art, he would have loved the fact that we were steeling this stuff from the back of the shed.”

I really miss you dad.

Death is nothing at all, I have only slipped away into the next room, I am I and you are you.

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still, call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way you always used.

Put no difference into your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow, laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we always enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me, pray for me, let my name be ever the household word that it always was, let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow in it.

Life means all that it ever meant, it is the same as it ever was, there is absolute unbroken continuity.

What is death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind, because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner, all is well.

Nothing is past; nothing is lost, one brief moment and all will be as it was before.

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral

Thanks you guys…you make forty feel just fine!

Cake tally: 3

God I love my birthday!  Flag day.  June.  Warm weather, ok it’s raining today but whatever, I still love it.

Here is the second cake of my month long celebration, do you see the ant walking on the tipped over ice cream cone?   Hmmm, maybe I should start making a cake tally.

Did you know I love cake?  Oh and coffee and red wine.  Do you see where this day is headed?

40 is so going to ROCK!

My season has typically ended with a race of this distance.  I train all summer to be able to do this.  But this year, it’s just a training on the calendar.  A base line of how things are going.  We hardly even taper.  It’s odd to say the least.

So how did the race go you ask?  Well, I had some mighty high expectations of myself…which is almost always a bad way to start.

The 1.2 mile swim: I headed into the water when the gun went off and within about 1 minute my arms and legs felt like logs, I felt like I couldn’t breath and I was having a hard time sighting the buoys.  This always happens to me.  The big FREAK OUT in the water.  I eventually found a good rhythm just in time for the wind to kick up and start bashing waves in my face.  I came out of the water and my watch said 37 minutes…a whole 5-7 minutes slower than I was hoping.

Transition 1: I went into transition, ripped off my wet suit, slide my arm warmers on and hopped on my bike.  No problems with the exception of some disappointment with the swim.

The 56 mile bike: Well, with all the bike drama I have been having I was not really looking forward to this leg of the race but they were not going to cut it out just for little’ol me, so onward.  Biking is hard for me, biking hurts and the little voice in my head just kept saying, you better just man the f*&% up if want to do well on this race.

My body was wet as I was not so quickly speeding down the road.  My hands started to become so cold that I couldn’t shift at all with my left hand and ended up doing everything with my right. This causes a little bit of unbalence and almost took me down as my elbow came up and off the aero bars.  My legs were burning and it was getting dark in my head.

It continued to get darker as my average pace slowed and the miles clipped along.  Then my team mate passed me like I was standing still.  If I didn’t like her so much I would have spit at her.  It was around that point in time that my mind and I were discussing the possibilities…just stop and not care anymore or bearing down, sucking it up and focusing on the best last leg possible.  It was my race I was racing and I had to let go who was passing me and that I might not catch them today.

I could fold or I could fight.

Transition 2: I happily slapped my bike on the rack and decided to sit down to put my shoes on.  I could not find my Yankz last night (bungee cords for your shoes) so I had to tie my shoes instead of just slip them on.  This proved to be a serious problem, I couldn’t feel my fingers and they were not going to let me do something as nimble as tie my laces.  So my shoes were on, but not tight.  I couldn’t even unclasp my helmet because my fingers couldn’t pinch hard enough to get the clasp undone, so I wiggled it around my chin and slipped it off.  Minuets wasted!

The run 13.1 miles: I decided I would just let the laces go, even though my feet were slipping around in my shoes from not being tight enough.  A friend yelled out that my feet and hands would get their feeling back around mile four, so I was determined to run until then, and then I could fix the problem.

Back on the bike, I decided to fight.  I decided to pull myself out of the not so happy place I was in and decided to do whatever I could to make the run the best it could be.  I took it one mile at a time, watching my pace and working the down hills as much as possible.  I was feeling pretty good, which meant the nutrition plan on the bike was good.  The miles clipped by as the rain kept coming.  I never stopped to tie my shoes again, why waste more time?  I finished the run leg in 1:48:30, almost catching my own half marathon PR of 1:47:50.  Not bad.

My finishing time 5:26:34. 5th in my age group (yup, they bumped me up to 40 even though I am 39 for two more days) and 11th over all the ladies.

My lesson learned this race, I am tough enough to pull myself out of a mental tail spin.  I’m gonna call that a success.

And kudos to all my buddies, my coach and my team mates racing yesterday.  You can find Diane 5th over all, Courtney 7th and jMatt 9th on leader board.  AND huge props to Cousin Katherine who WON the Olympic Distance race.

It’s super cool to race with such a talented group of people.