Twas the day before Danskin...

Wow.

I have the greatest friends in the world. As Aleks, one of them, says, "No joke."

I want to write about Danskin...but first I have to write about yesterday. I didn't race - I didn't even exercise - but it's important to my triathlon life.

First, Danielle did race - the Beaver Lake Triathlon. I woke up early so I could go there with her in the morning (and I brought both kids) and watch her race.

We got to see her enter and exit the water and leave on the bike - then we went over to help man a water station. Camille (who is 3) wasn't really helpful - but Gabriel (6) was awesome. He held out his little arms for a couple of hours with cups of water in his hands to give to the runners - and was totally cool when they either splashed him accidentally or didn't take his water. I ran back and forth giving more cups to the kids who were holding them out - it was fun to see all the racers, and it felt good to give a little back, since I've had lots of volunteers give me water in the past!

So then we met up with Regan and Aleks and went over to Seattle to packet pickup. Danskin is just such a production - packet pickup is at one end of the city, then mandatory day-before bike racking is at the other end - and I figured that it would be much more enjoyable if we took one car and could talk and goof around while stuck in traffic - which WE WERE. UGH. No wonder we prefer to go to Seattle via bike instead of car!

We walked around the expo, stopped for a big lunch, then racked our bikes. I was pretty unhappy about my bike racking location. It was almost as bad as it could be. Okay, I'm exaggerating. But it was much worse than in previous years. Oh well. The semi-good news was that even though Aleks and I were racing in our age groups, our start times were near the "mixed age" category, in which Danielle and Regan were racing. This just meant that we'd finish closer together - I was a little worried that my age group would go early and I'd be completely done before Regan even started!

So after we racked bikes, we got our families and had a huge, lovely dinner at the Olive Garden. Then home separately and to bed!

As I write this, I realize I'm writing the play-by-play of what we did - but not what it was about.

It was about friendship, and support, and love. I can't describe how proud I am of all these women for where they've gotten themselves, and I can't describe how good knowing them makes me feel. Yes, triathlon is an individual sport, and we're always "competing" against each other (although, the four of us are strangely all in different age groups. I think Danielle and Regan are close enough in age that some years they could race in the same group, but not right now, and it really doesn't matter anyway). But we train together, we help each other, and we make it more fun for everyone. That's what yesterday meant...then today was just the icing on the cake. (Yeah, I am writing this Sunday, but I'm doing the Danskin race report in a separate post.)

So Aleks wrote the best blog post last night - read it here. Try not to cry.

Danskin race report forthcoming...