7 Days Left!!! The Final Push!!!

Well, there's officially 1 week left until I'm toeing the line with thousands of other athletes, hoping that I can crush my first ever Ironman attempt!!! It's so unreal and I can't even begin to comprehend how I'm able to embark on this journey. It seems so long ago now that I struggled to finish my first Wildflower Long Course attempt this past May...

Since then I've been on such a strong streak of training and racing and building of my fitness level. On this road to Ironman Florida, I've accomplished:

-Raised over $3000 and awareness about Neurofibromatosis and the children and families it affects
-Completed 5 Sprint Triathlons (setting new PRs in all of them compared to previous years)
-Completed a Olympic Triathlon (setting a PR for this distance)
-Completed a Half Ironman (setting a PR for this distance)
-Completed a 2 mile Hermosa to Manhattan, Pier-to-Pier Swim (first ever, sans wetsuit)
-Completed a Century ride (first ever and not an easy one either, 5400ish ft of elevation)
-Completed a Full Marathon (first ever)
-Set PRs for my 5k, 10k and Half Marathon runs
-Set PRs for my 40k Bike
-Changed my diet and (for the most part) eliminated fast food
-Lost 6 lbs and about 10% body fat (which is about 11 lbs of fat)
-Practice discipline, fought through struggles, persevered through pain, blew past doubt
-And at least checked in with most of my social circles (for the most part)

And that's just the things that I can recall!!!

I also want to reiterate my thanks and admiration for the Children's Tumor Foundation and their Endurance NF program. Without them, I wouldn't even be able to do this race. But much more than that, I was paired with little Ava Lowell, her wonderful mother Dawn Lowell and the rest of their beautiful family. They've been a huge inspiration and have really helped to keep me mentally strong. To think that such a beautiful, wonderful and sweet little girl can persevere just helped me keep pushing forward! As the great Macca said in his book "I'm Here to Win," it really helps to understand one's motivation for racing and to really be great you need to find and race for something more than just yourself. So I thank CTF for giving me that!

So this journey has been great and the experience has got me thinking this won't be my last attempt. But for now, I'm very excited to countdown to Race Day and hopefully cross that finish line with a smile and a great time!

To close, I'll leave a snapshot of the course I hope to crush:

 

(Photo credit: www.ironman.com)