Tri-Dogmom

I wanted to get this post out while it's still fresh on my mind, pain in my body and a slight hangover from yesterday's celebration. Ironman is hard.  Even on a day with perfect conditions it will test your body, it will test your mind.  You can train 20 hours a week or 6 hours a week and the end result is going to come down to how well you EXECUTE a plan, and what kind of grit you can pull out on the day. Last year training for this race everything went flawless.  I followed my plan to a T, I rested and I recovered.  This year was a little chaotic with a lot of travel then followed by 6 weeks of caring for sick dogs and packing up to move to CDA for the summer.  I wasn't resting, I wasn't recovering and all of my workouts were not the quality I would like.  However, in the last couple of weeks leading up to the race my dogs were recovering, my stress was low and I was doing what I needed to get my body and mind race ready.  I was feeling great! ...

It's been almost a month since my last post and I feel like my life has completely changed.  I can honestly say this has been one, if not the hardest, most stressful months of my life. I'll back up a bit and talk about the good. Before our life got turned upside down and both of our dogs were diagnosed with cancer, I was training hard, feeling great and had a pretty solid race in Rocky Point. I conquered one of my huge fears which was swimming through huge waves, basically dolphin diving and body surfing and avoiding all stingrays! I biked my legs off and ran fairly strong landing my second 3rd overall place at the Rocky Point Tri. After our trip to Mexico we learned that Baxter had hemangiosarcoma. The really bad kind. The kind that spreads quickly and the prognosis is 1-3-6 months.  I'm happy to say that he has mostly recovered from his splenectomy (where the tumor was) and that he's doing great. We've had a couple of little scares, (most recently our firs...