Misty's Fundraising Page

Racing to Save Lives

Hi Friends!

Thanks for taking the time to visit my Team In Training home page.

I've been a competitive athlete most of my life but never thought this would include racing in a triathlon. Hopefully I can put some of my soccer and endurance skills to good use. I will be training for the Treasure Island International Triathlon in San Francisco on November 8, 2008.

I'm participating as a member of Team In Training, and we are all raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma from taking more lives. I am completing this event in honor of all individuals who are battling blood cancers.

I would love for you to help me in raising money for this great cause. Not only will your donations go towards the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS), but it will also help support my fitness training, and other competition fees. All donations are 100% tax deductible and our tax ID is 13-5644916.

Thank you so much for your prayers and support. Please pass my home page link along to anyone who may be interested in helping. Be sure to check back frequently to see my proress!

GO TEAM!

*To check out photos from our team practices go to: http://eastsidetnt.com/winter08/

Click on photos and pick the album you wish to view.

TRAINING BLOG:

(Training blog goes from oldest to newest...scroll down to bottom to see most recent update)

I probably should have started this training blog from my very first day...but, seeing as how it's the 7th week of my training that's most likely not going to happen. :) I will at least give a brief memory of my very first swim practice:

I swam to one end of the pool (25 m) came up out of the water completely breathless, gasping for air. I took about a 5 minute break, regained composure, and then swam to the other end of the pool. After what seemed to be an eternity of lap swimming (which in reality probably ended up being only about 6 laps) I thought to myself, there is no way that I will be able to swim .93 miles without drowning! Sure enough, things are looking up. :) At our team swim practice on Wednesdays, our coaches will shout off 200 m warm up! Luckily I am to a point where I have built my endurance both mentally and physically so that a 200 m swim now is the norm.

On Monday, I swam 1700 yards...that's 17 Canadian Football fields!! It's amazing what your body can do if you put your mind to something. During this 64 lap swim, I tried to figure out a way to pass the time. I thought it would be fun to think of a memory for the specific lap # I was on. Obviously you can tell I ran into problems. The first being, I couldn't think of a memory from when I was 1 years old...or even 2. So laps pretty much 1-10 were kind of blurred together. Then I got on a roll of thinking of something significant from each year of my life. Here's where the second problem came in...when I got to the 24th lap, I could think of a memory during this past year of my life, but laps 25 and on have not been lived, hence, I had no memories to entertain me as I swam the rest of my laps. I think I'm going to have to come up with a better strategy while I swim next time!

As far as the rest of our training, we have just moved into the portion of training where we combine two sports. Most of our practices were focused solely on one, but we are learning to train our bodies to get used to the shock of two...and eventually three sports. There's nothing like riding a bike for an hour up strenuous hills only to transition into a long grueling run. Most of the time my legs don't like to cooperate with me as I transition from one sport to the next, but they're catching on quickly that being pathetic and tired is not an option.

This weekend my tri team is taking a camping trip to Lake Piru where we will continue practicing the combination of the different events. We just got our wetsuits so it will be the first time we practice putting them on (which is not an easy task) and swimming with them.

I'll keep you all posted how the team camping trip goes when I return...

....to be continued....

Lake Piru Camping Trip:

I arrived to the campground site just as the sun was saying its last goodbyes. There's nothing like attemping to put up a tent in the dark. Luckily some of my teammates helped out and it was up in no time. I was so excited to be camping in the new tent I had just purchased. My sister and I shared this so-called "3-Man Tent" and later learned that it was not big enough for the 2 of us. I noticed later on during the weekend that a fellow camper had the same exact tent. I wondered how camping was going for them with such a small tent. One minute later, two little kids came crawling out of their mansion of tent. I was sleeping in a tent that was made for tiny tikes!

We started Saturday morning off nice and early. Our coaches took us on a brick (bike/run) that left my legs in a temper tantrum. We biked a 6 mile loop up hills as steep as sitting in the front row of a movie theater looking up at the screen. So many times I wanted to get off my bike and walk it up the hill because I was moving at such a snail pace. After the 6 mile loop we returned to our "transition area" where we stripped off our biking gear and put on the running shoes. Off I went on a loop around the park. Once the bike loop and the running loop were completed, that counted as ONE LOOP....we had to do 4 of them!!

My mind played so many tricks on me telling me to give up, but luckily I was able to mentally endure this physical challenge. On one of the hills that I was speeding down, I had my first encounter with a squirrel. I screamed and attempted to break knowing that one of us was going to die, but it wasn't going to be me. The squirrel curled it's body up as it appeared to be going under my front tire. It made a front tumble, cleared the tire and continued across the street...stupid squirrel!

Sunday morning was a 5 mile run...and guess what the course was? Yup...more loops! I think I was dizzy by the end of the weekend from circling around so many of them. The lake was too murky for us to swim in it so we never ended up practicing with our wetsuites. Nontheless, it was a wonderful weekend full of campfires, laughter, food and good company.

Up next...a trial run (not a run literally), at Hermosa...swimming with our wetsuites. Stay tuned...

Hermosa Beach "Mock" Tri:

It ends up our team did a "mock" tri to simulate what it will be like on race day. It was our first ocean swim and first time with our wetsuits. My goodness, I thought I was going to die. All of my work at swim practice seemed to vanish as soon as I got in the water. There was no way I was able to swim my normal swimming pattern that I have been practicing all along. I was choking down waves of salt water every other stroke. Not to mention I had to stop a few times to throw giant chunks of seaweed out of my path. It is definitely a different experience swimming in the ocean. I was trying to swim in a straight line with no lane lines while various water currents were vying for my attention.

I was completely soaked afterwards and then I hopped on my bike for a nice breezy ride. We got to tour the area to see what the course will look like. (*In case I have not mentioned it, I will also be doing a "Sprint Tri" in Hermosa Beach on Oct. 12 followed by the full Tri in San Fran Nov. 8)

After cycling through the course, I was off to a 3.4 mile run. Doesn't seem that far on paper, but after clawing my way through the ocean and pedaling along the freezing cold waterfront, asking for a run after that was a lot.

We have our next "mock" Tri this Saturday in Malibu with the Westside Team. This will be set up more like a real triathlon where we will have numbers painted on our bodies and an actual start and finish line. She be fun to see how our Eastside team compares with the Westside.

Go Team!

Malibu Mock Tri:

What an experience...the waves were so intensely big I literally saw my life flash before my eyes! I kept getting sucked into a rip tide and there was no way humanly possible to muscle my way through a wave that stood taller than me.

I was in pure panic as I waved my hands frantically in the air, hoping my teammates watching from the shore would notice. I was trying to signal for help, but I think they thought I was enjoying myself so they waved back at me like "Hey Mist...lookin' good...keep it up!". I was thinking "Hello people...I'm drowning here!" Besides...who made the signal for "help" the same signal for "hey...look at me I'm having so much fun". Someone needs to think of a new sign because I didn't exactly have time to explain my situation to them as I got pulled under the tide.

After coughing up a lung from the horrifying swim, I managed to pull myself together to complete the 60 min. bike ride and the 30 min. run. I have my first official sprint tri THIS Sunday at Hermosa Beach if anyone wants to come and watch. Race starts at 7 AM and it should be pretty short since it's only half the distance of the olympic race. Hopefully I have seen the worst of the waves, so the rest should be a breeze.

I am nervous and excited for Sunday...but overall I hope to compete well. Be sure to check back to find out my race results...

Hermosa Sprint Triathlon:

Have you ever stood on sand that was so hot it was practically burning your feet?...now, tell me this...have you ever stood on sand that was so freezing cold it made your feet go numb? The sand I stood on this weekend was so cold I saw many people crawling on their hands and knees and multiple people (including myself) who had to at one point sit down and cup their feet with their hands to warm them up.

My morning started by waking up at 4 AM packing up all my gear and biking in the pitch black to our "transition area" where I setup all of my stuff. There were multiple bike racks...men on one side of the lot, and women on the other. My age group was 19-24. We got body markings at 5 AM with our bib number down the side of our arm, and our age on the back of our left calf.

The race started with all of the men (youngest to oldest) broken into different heats. My heat was #7, but the first for all of the females. Our swim was 1/4 mile long, but it seemed like forever. It is an interesting feeling swimming with a mass of people getting kicked, and kicking others. We all were swimming so close together, that you never knew who you were going to run into. Luckily the waves were not too humongous, but I still did manage to swallow a few mouth fulls of salt water. I felt like I was in more of a survival mode as I was swimming instead of a competitive mode.

I ran up the beach trying to peel off my wetsuit as fast as I could so I could get ready for the bike portion of the race. It is always hard getting a wet foot into a sock, or a wet hand into a glove. The darn things just wouldn't go on fast enough! I ran with my bike out of the transition area before I was able to mount it.

We had to do 3 loops around the course before we could head back to the transition area. Since my heat was the first group of females to go, I knew that if I saw a female riding ahead of me that she was from my group and that I needed to catch up to her and pass her. I am way too competitive to have anyone in front of me. I pedaled as fast as I could...I felt like I could have been the Wicked Witch from the West straight out of the Wizard of Oz. As I continued onto my second loop I noticed more and more females...so here I was pedaling hard and trying to pass them all. This is where the age marking on the back of the calf came into play. I realized I was passing all the 30 year olds, which was the group that started behind me. They must have entered onto the course to begin their first loop around the track. So I was pretty much chasing after the wrong group of people. I guess it was a good motivator to go faster.

After the ride, I slapped on my running shoes and race belt. I have never experienced such numbness in my feet before. As I was running, I had to keep looking down to make sure I really did put on my running shoes because it felt like I still had my biking shoes on. I had no sensation in my toes, and I felt like I was running on rocks. I also noticed that I still had one biking glove on...oops...I didn't want to be caught dead trying to sport the Michael Jackson look so I ripped it off and threw it to the side.

The feeling in my feet finally came back as I finished the second half of the run. On top of having a bad stomach cramp...my ankle was dripping blood from my ankle tracker. This tracker follows your every move so you know how long each portion of the race takes you. Somehow it cut my ankle open so it was not a very fun run for me.

All that to say...I finished 8th in my age group (only the top 5 rank). The 5th place girl in my group raced in 1 hr 11 mins, and I finished in 1 hour 12 minutes. I know I can shave off some time in a few areas, so I am excited for my next tri.

**To see my race results please visit:

www.mesp.com

-Click Events, Arrowhead Day at the Beach

-Click on Results

-Hermosa Tri

-Individual Female

-1:12:54 tab (towards bottom of page)

Chelsea can be found under the 1:22:43 tab.

I am excited/nervous for my San Fran Tri because the swim is going to be so much longer. These next 3 weeks are going to be very difficult. We were told that we are going to be pushing ourselves longer and harder than ever before.

Thank you to everyone who has been praying for me and who has supported me. It really means so much to have you all cheering me on. I'll keep you posted how the final training weeks go.

"For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." (1 Timothy 4:8)

Photos From Hermosa Tri Are In!...

http://www.brightroom.com/view_user_event.asp?EVENTID=38863&BIB=768&S=230&PWD=

THE FINAL COUNT DOWN....

It's Monday, and I am counting down the days until my Tri on Saturday. It's hard to believe that it is finally here! I leave Thursday to make the long drive up to San Francisco. I really hope I don't forget anything along the way. There are so many details and things to remember for each section of the tri. I have watched a few videos on past triathlons in San Fran, and it makes me so nervous....like sick to my stomach nervous. But I am excited to complete this tri and officially be able to call myself a triathlete!

We did another practice swim in Santa Monica this past weekend. I have struggled and fought my way through numerous waves (which, thankfully, shouldn't be a problem on Saturday)...but more importantly, battled through my own thoughts, fears and anxiety. The swimming is the most difficult portion for me. There is nothing like fighting against my thoughts and feelings of sheer panic...I am my own worst enemy. I do hope, however, that I can swim in a "competitive" mode rather than a "survival" mode.

I have reached my goal and I want to say THANK YOU to all of you who have contributed. It is such a blessing to have you all in my life who care so much to support me and my first triathlon. Your donation means more than you know, and I could not have done it without each and every single one of you. Please continue to pray that I can overcome any anxiety and fears that I have going into this triathlon. I hope to perform my very best, especially after all the training I have endured.

I will officially be running this race in honor of:

Louise Doncaster

&

Steve Godwin

These are 2 amazing people who currently battle this blood cancer, but have courageously faced life and lived it to it's fullness regardless. It is a pleasure running in their honor!

Stay tuned for details and results from the big race day...