Blow it out your ear!

I think that is my new saying these days! For the longest time (ok, since about 2002) I have dreamt about doing a fully ironman (specifically IM CDA), I have hit bumps and gotten some bruises but every time I get up, dust myself off and continue moving forward.  The latest saga is requesting the possibility of wearing gloves for medical reason during the swim portion of the race.  After Ironman said no even after USAT said yes for medical reason I decided Ironman can blow it out their ear!  I am not a competitor (by any stretch of the imagination), I am fat and slow, but I am a triathlete and no one or nothing can take that away from me.  Sadly, most of the 140.6 mile races are owned by Ironman which makes accomplishing my dream a little more difficult.  I started doing my homework; low and behold I found a few that aren’t Ironman owned.  I found one that won’t stop screaming my name; it seems like it would be the perfect race (they have said gloves are fine, if needed).  I found another around the same time of year (which should let me hit my goal of having an ironman under my belt by the time I am 35).  Either race will just take a little more maneuvering to get my cheering squad to the finish line.  But I don’t care, I will be an ironman (please note the lowercase ‘i’). 

While on the hunt for some answers, I used social media to my benefit.  First I posted on my local tri club’s facebook page and was given some very helpful advice (I will come back to this part shortly) and I posted on Ironman’s page because I am downright confused as to why USAT says one thing and Ironman goes and does something completely different.  As far as the tri club goes, I found out there is another member who suffers from an autoimmune disease, Rheumatoid Arthritis.  I know I am not the only person out there who suffers from one of the God awful diseases but it is nice to know that there are others out there who are in a similar boat.  I have people in my life who are sympathetic to what I am going through, but do not fully understand. I have to say through, I have no idea what I would do if I didn’t have these people in my life. 

By the end of next year I will have either completed Beach2Battleship or Great Floridian Triathlon.

~If you hear that someone is speaking ill of you, instead of trying to defend yourself you should say: "He obviously does not know me very well, since there are so many other faults he could have mentioned"~