In February I had recieved a post card in the mail from Team in Training for Leukemia and Lymphoma asking to come to a meeting to find out what they were about.  I thought, Ok, won't hurt, I had seen these people at races before.  Let's see what they have to say.  They said that we could do a Century bike race, a Sprint or Olympic style triathlon, or 1/2 or full Marathon.  The meeting stated that we would raise funds that would go towards Leukemia and Lymphoma and all blood cancers, we would get free training and meet new people..... I thought, OK, I bite, the fundraising would be the hardest, but it goes toward a really good cause.  I signed up for the sprint tri because I had done two of them before and you can't beat getting free training! 

After we had our kick off meeting we had gotten the from our coach Nicole Drummer our schedule.  The first run called to run for 1 whole hour non stop!  What the heck?!  I ran 40 minutes.  Then we had a team meeting and we met the rest of the team and our coach.  And after that the training started.  And people started to drop out for a variety of reasons.  We ended up with 3 solid members myself, Kisti, and Chris. We had our Capitan and TNT Alumni member John comeback.  I remember the first group training, it was a cycle ride.  20 miles in 40 degree weather with 20 mph winds around Palmer lake.  It was terrible but felt good afterward. 

The swimming, running, cycling continued weekly with our own training as the calendar stated.  Sometimes it was hard when my husband had to go TDY and my son had his baseball games or practices to attend but I still did them, maybe not the full time as the calendar stated because of his practice times but I still did my workouts and sometimes I had been exhausted.

After a few months into the training I had decided to change my commitment from the sprint tri to the olympic tri because, hey, I was training for the olympic so I may as well do it. 

We continued the training with the wind at its worse in the 5 years that I have been here.  A few times it seemed as though the fastest we would go is 7mph against the wind when cycling, and don't mention putting my head down when we were running into the wind going around the track just to try to get somewhere when we were running. Imagine the bad form!  We had a few lessons on eating while training and we tried out some new items when we trained to see what would work when race day came such as gels, drinks, and protien bars etc. 

The swimming is my worse strength.  I learned how to put my face into the water by myself last year so I was a challenge for my coach.  I had the worse habits that one could think of, and I really don't "catch" water with my arms when I swim, I just sort of "slip" through the water so I don't move very fast.  Because I am competitive, frustration set in very very quickly with the swimming.  I would just think to myself "UGGHH" I cannot wait for this to be over!

When I put all of the training together and all of the hard work, frustration, and a few injuries,  I can see the difference.  I can feel the difference. And I love it!

Well, the training is NOT over, I have for sure another sprint tri on the calendar in August, and my husband found one yesterday that he suggested to me.  And I really want to do the ride for the cure because I love to cyle.

 I think I may sneak into a few of them with the fall TNT team and try to be a captain for a spring or winter team later on just so I can stay efficient. And why not?  The TNT experience has been awesome!  The people were great and the support that you get could not be any better anywhere else!

In the picture left to right:

TNT Alumni Shannon, Team mate Chris, Captain John, Coach Nicole, Myself Bridget, Team Mate Kisti  GO TEAM!