It’s over. And I didn’t drown. And that in and of itself is probably one of my biggest accomplishments of the year.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, let me elaborate.

This past weekend, I participated on a relay team in the 2008 Danskin Women’s Triathlon in Seattle, WA. Now, if you know me at all, you may have guessed that I’m not exactly what comes to mind when you think of a triathlon. Nevertheless, two of my closest friends in the world talked me into being on their team (because they needed a swimmer), and, not knowing any better, I said yes.

Of course, when I agreed to participate, I didn’t realize how hard it would be to go from a post-baby, out-of-shape non-swimmer to someone who could swim 604 meters in the open water of Lake Washington. The hardest part was figuring out how to get to the gym to swim around the nap schedules of my two darling angels. In the end, I hired a babysitter to come to my house while kiddo #2 slept. Brilliant! How sad it will be when school starts again and that’s no longer an option.

In its 19th consecutive year, the Danskin Women’s Triathlon Series remains the longest running multi-sports Series in the world. It’s a sprint distance (i.e. shorter than regular triathlons) and is geared towards women of any age and ability. For this particular race there were nearly 4,000 women, and I have never seen so many ages, body types and sizes in one place in my entire life. It was amazing. The supportive enviroment was unbelievable. We saw middle-aged women helping their elderly mothers out of the water, a blind racer on a tandem bike, and a 75-year old who crossed the finish line.

As a relay team, we each took one portion of the race. My job was to start the race by swimming the 604 meters. I had been swimming that distance in the pool (about 24 lengths) in about 18 minutes. But they did warn me that the open water swim was much different, and to be prepared to swim about 900 meters (36 lengths) which I could do in about 26 minutes. So, my goal was to finish my split in 26 minutes.

I was prepared that it was going to be much more physically difficult to swim in open water, but I was not prepared for how much more mentally difficult it actually was. My “wave” was #2, and we entered the water at 6:46am. Uh, yeah…. cold. Immediately, I knew it was much more than I had bargained for. At about 50 meters in, I had a major anxiety attack. I couldn’t put my face in the water because it was black and I couldn’t see where I was going. And I’d get kicked in the face. But I couldn’t keep my head above water because I kept getting waves splashing me in the face and I was tiring too easily. So, I panicked, and I couldn’t breathe. I literally thought I was going to drown, because I wanted to quit, but I didn’t think I could even make it back to shore.

But, that’s where the uber-supportive environment comes in. There were tons of kayaks in the water, and I hailed the first one. He let me grab his boat, and tried to calm me down, telling me to take deep breaths. Then he pointed to the next boat and had me swim to him. Then they hailed down an “angel swimmer.” Danskin Swim Angels are volunteers who participate in the swim segment providing encouragement and support to women who may experience temporary anxiety in the water.

My angel asked me my name, and told me she was going to swim with me for awhile… and… she had a NOODLE! I was not allowed to swim with the noodle, but whenever I needed to stop and take a breather, she was right there for me. She helped me to the first buoy, where I rounded the corner and headed down the long stretch. At this point, I was swimming parallel to the shore, which was easier without the waves lapping in my face. I was able to swim longer stretches without her and at some point I lost her in the crowd. I grabbed onto another kayak for a short rest, and happened to glance back to the first buoy. I realized I was closer to the second buoy… I was over half way there!

And that’s when everything changed. Suddenly, I was no longer hyperventilating. I got my stride together, and even felt stronger than in the pool. I got going on a couple of good grooves, until I would get kicked in the head again and come up coughing and choking. A kayaker would yell out, “You okay green cap?” and I’d nod and keep on swimming! And once I got close enough to hear the crowd cheering, my adrenaline really picked up, and so did my pace. I finished my swim in 29 minutes – only 3 minutes slower than my goal!!

The whole experience was incredibly exhilirating, and next year the three of us have committed to doing the whole thing individually, instead of as a relay team. Perhaps by then, we could actually improve on our current “Float, Coast & Crawl” status and become real “Swim, Bike & Run”-ers. If anyone would like to join us in our goal, I highly encourage it! If we can do it, anyone can, and we are looking for more teammates to join us in the experience. It’s definitely a day to remember!

This is pretty much what the view looked like when I stepped in the water at 6:46am!

Team Golden Winters with support staff

The past two weekends have been great with Mylie and I (Nick). Last weekend while Karli and Nolan went to Utah, this was a perfect opportunity to take Mylie to the Evergreen Aviation Museum again. We went about one year ago and let me tell you the difference one year makes. I packed a small cooler with a lunch and headed out to McMinnville, OR without a diaper bag or even diapers, since she is just about potty-trained. We went into the museum with just her digital camera, which I convinced her she should carry to take pictures. Ah, brilliant!

There are actually two museums: air and space. Last year the space museum was not built so this was a treat that I got to go to both this time. We got to see a Titan II rocket (missle) where we could even take the stairs down to see underneath its engines. We also entered a room that was a mock-up of a control center with the countdown and launch of the rocket on a video screen, which we enjoyed because it shook the entire room. Mylie still talks about it and how fun it was.

Later we went across the parking lot to the aviation museum and saw Howard Hughes HK-1 (or Spruce Goose). That is an amazing sight in of itself but we also saw several others. One neat thing was to see a B-17 dwarfed in the shadows of the Spruce Goose because I always thought those airplanes were huge, until now. The entire time Mylie had fun, especially when she got to sit in several cockpits in the kids area. The most fun she had, though, was going from chair to chair throughout the museum. You see, the chairs throughout were made up of airline seats that had the seat belts and food trays still working. She kept buckling herself and making sure I was buckled too. The only thing I could do to peel her away from the seats was to say, “Let’s go take more pictures of airplanes.” I had brought her digital camera so she could take her own pictures. I was quite impressed how they turned out (see below).

We ate lunch at the playground outside of the museum, which was very cool too. There was a rocket you could climb up and two play toys made to look like an airplane and helicopter.

Our next dose of airplanes was this weekend where we saw many of them just outside our house because the airshow at Hillsboro Airport is just down the street from us. Whenever we’d hear an airplane we would immediately stop what we were doing, jump up, and rush to the window. Later she and I drove to a spot we went last year and just parked the van and opened up the tailgate to watch them. During breaks we also picked blackberries nearby. Mylie was such a good sport and actually had a great time. The most exciting part was seeing the F/A-18 fly very close to us at such great speeds that you couldn’t hear it until a few seconds after it flew past us. It gave me just enough time to plug Mylie’s ears.

Since the show went on today (Sunday) as well, on the way to church we could constantly hear them roar overhead and she was very excited she told everyone at church all about them.

Unfortunately I didn’t get pictures of the airshow but here are some pictures Mylie took at the museum, with one exception since I took one picture of her. Others you can find on our photo album

So one of my dearest friends in the whole world called me up last Thursday. We had been trying to work out a time to get together, since I hadn’t seen her since she returned from her mission to Argentina last August. We’ve had plans falling through all summer, so I thought she was working on another try when she asked, “How soon can you plan a trip to Utah?” Having only one major weekend committed in August, I felt like was pretty open to a trip by the end of the month. Until she laid this one on me: “Can you come this weekend? I’m getting married on Saturday.”