Are You Living It?

It’s crazy how sometimes when your life is totally scattered how feelings, emotions, and revelations can come about at the strangest moments. The hard part is confronting them and letting your heart be vulnerable. I’m not sure if it’s courage but more like being honest with yourself and allowing your heart and mind the opportunity to have peace by letting these feelings surface. There are times in our lives where we have to keep our true feelings buried but then there are people we are lucky to cross paths with where you feel comfortable being open and even if it’s not good timing at least you can grow from the situation and rediscover yourself.

Looks like I missed a couple posts over the last couple weeks. So, to make it up to you guys, here is something on Jeremy McGhee. Jeremy was in a very bad motorbike accident in his early 20’s and has been in a wheelchair since. This was of course a big change in his life but he chose to still live the dream instead of letting himself down.

Here’s a good pic of Theo “in the moment”…  I’ll explain where I’m going with this below.

Theo’s life is about extremes:  sheer ecstasy and sheer boredom.  He handles the latter by sleeping (the dog literally sleeps 19 hours per day) and handles the former with total immersion in the moment.

Just found out yesterday I got accepted into Graduate School for my Masters in Sports Psychology.

Here’s a wonderful poem my new friend Nicola Cranmer of PROMAN RACING shared, she’s another strong and amazing female cyclist who lives life with passion on and off the bike…

A cool poem, author unknown

Strong Women vs. Women of Strength

A strong woman works out every day to keep her body in shape.
A woman of strength builds relationships to keep her soul in shape.

If the video won’t load, here is the link.

I watched an amazing thing today. Two women crept forward in their cars, jockeying for this parking spot right by the grocery store’s front doors. They began honking and arguing, with one finally wedging her car in before the other. The one who didn’t get the space parked behind the other woman, got out and continued arguing.

There were probably about 20 empty spaces less than 30 yards away. I’m not kidding.

Last week LYP made a donation to Jason and Heather Hooten’s efforts with the CT Jamboree, an 80 mile high country MTB ride to benefit people suffering from multiple sclerosis.  Well, the Hootens report back that the ride was a big success.  Over $45K raised!!  Wow!  The weather cooperated, all the coordination ran like clockwork, and some of the most unbelievable singletrack in the world was enjoyed by more than 70 brave riders.  Way to go, everyone…  Congratulations!

Yep, and they can’t talk back.
Buster and Grumpy… 2 heart breakers

I’m in Denver (lovin’ it) dog sitting for Sharon, while she’s out in the OC for Nats and more importantly hang time in Laguna beach.

Also, here are some great quotes I found the other night online while I tried to get rid of a nagging migraine, enjoy the power of the written word…

Getting ready…

Running the bike out…

Taking it to the run course.

.8 mile swim

22 mile bike

6 mile run

2:22

My husband is AWESOME! This was really SO much fun to watch…I know I’ll end up being a coach someday because I SWEAR I take so much joy in rooting folks on. It’s the best.

Passion, Patience, Persevere… these are the three main words that allowed me the opportunity to not only make it through my recovery but to come out of it stronger and more focused as a person and a athlete. The last entry I wrote was about my training for the 2008 season well if you aren’t aware, I was in a pretty nasty crash at the Tour of Gila where I ended up breaking my pelvis in three (my lucky number) places. After a “fun” airplane flight to El Paso where the doctors initially thought I was going to need surgery, I wake up finding out that I was in another state and possibly going under the knife! It was all a whirlwind but luckily I had my coach Michael Engleman there by my side until my mother could fly across the US to help. I ended up not needing surgery and my mom was there to fly me back to SC to start my recovery process. It was a long 3 months of highs and lows, pain medications and crutches for most of it but in hind sight more positive things like seeing my sister Candice graduate from Grad School, attending a friends wedding, and many more. These are all important events in my life that I would’ve missed if I had been racing.