Drinking the Kool-Aid

I realized over the weekend I've drunk the IronTEAM Kool-aid.  It's crazy how much I enjoy being with these people that just a few months ago were perfect strangers.  Now, they feel like a second family.

I might still be riding a high from completing Desert Tri.  I also still might be giddy about how great last weekend's 4 hour ride went, and it was awesome for me (more on this in a separate post tomorrow).  But, I know that even when things are not going well in training, when I have tough rides or runs where I just want to stop or swims where I just can't think of going one more lap in the pool, I still can't imagine not being a part of this incredible team.

We go through a lot together - and it's only going to be more and more as time goes on.  They don't mind when you show up wearing all spandex, hell, they're all wearing all spandex too.  (Side note - as one teammate put it after Desert Tri - "I never thought I could have so much fun in spandex."  It's a little ridiculous how much of it there is in my dresser now, but that's beside the point.)  We are all going through the same things.  

We celebrate the great days that people have and commiserate over the bad ones that others experience - usually both happen the same day, and everyone experiences both.  We talk about spending crazy money on fancy watches and new bikes.  We chat about what our nutrition is like for a long workout (seriously, adding tasteless carbs to a beverage is NOT something I ever thought I would do - and now I do, thank you Carbo Pro).  We finish a workout and the first thing we all do is go for our recovery drinks (thank you coaches for drilling that in to our heads).  You're a sweaty, salty mess at the end of a workout, and you'll still get hugs all the way around for a job well done, even if you feel like it was a failure of some kind.

We swim, we bike, we run, over and over and over again.  We are training for events that are not just huge, but are things that very few people actually set out to start, all while fundraising.  From the subject line of one of our coaches emails "You are not normal" (we got this after a 4 hour bike ride followed by a hilly 30 minute run).  And you know, what, we're not normal, and we embrace it and each other.  

We're not normal and I love it.  I've clearly drunk the IronTEAM Kool-aid.

some of the team at the finish line at Desert Tri

These people, all of them, participants, mentors, captains, coaches, inspire me every single day, more than they will ever know and I am so grateful to have each and every one of them in my life.  Thank you IronTEAM.  Thank you.