This is Gretchen. The middle child. She participated in her first Iron Man (Woman) last weekend in Lake Placid, NY. Lake Placid is beautiful! The event, a whole other story. Beautiful, painful, crying, laughing. Wow. Starting at 6:15am with a 2.4 mile swim around Mirror Lake. Maisie and I slept in. Maisie got up to see what the noise was coming from the lake, came running back into our bedroom to tell me I needed to go watch the swim, because watching a large group of swimmers swim was loud. 2300 people into the water between 6 and 9:30am. That was quite a show. Elbows looking like shark fins.

Next comes the bike. Well, really next comes the transition. Taking off the wet suit and climbing into your bike clothes and shoes. Then putting your fanny on the bike seat for 112 miles. I thought the weather was perfect. Clouds, a little drizzle, 68º. Little did I know 15 miles out of town and up into the peaks, the wind was blowing, hard, and the rain pouring down. Making puddles of dangerous water for the fast, skinny racing tires. Gretchen told me her fingers were white and she was freezing! Out in the cold and wind was a 6 mile down hill. Cold.

Here she is on the 2nd lap of the bike about 110 miles into the bike, with 2 miles to the next transition. Out of the bike clothes and into the running clothes. The running picture was at the top. Look at her smile, she actually looks like she is enjoying herself. And at the same time telling Ian, “this sucks”.  And she did her 26.2 mile run. And ended up finishing the entire event with a time of 11:58. Her goal had been 12 hours. She did it.

Ian had taken a bike and rode around to cheer her on. I stayed at the rental house and watched and fed kids. The event went by the rental house 6 times. We cheered a lot and took a lot of pictures. I love the picture of Ben taking a picture of her biking. Maisie is standing beside Ben holding a sign saying, “Piggy back, Mommy?!”

This week I have been reading from John O’Donohue on encouragement. “One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement.” So when someone in your life wants to participate in something completely crazy. Offer words of encouragement. Give them love. Help people open doors.

• July 28th, Saturday, 8:30-9:30am slow flow
• July 30th, Monday, 9-10:15am slow flow
• July 30th, Monday, 5:30-6:45pm, slow flow
• July 31st, Tuesday, 7:30-8:30am, sore and stiff
• August 1st, Wednesday, 7:30-8:30am, sore and stiff
• August 1st, Wednesday, 9-10:15am, slow flow
• August 3rd, Friday, 7:30-8:30am. sore and stiff
• August 3rd, Friday, 9-10:15am, slow flow
• August 4th, Saturday, 8:30-9:30am slow flow