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Monday, August 24, 2009

Iron Girl Triathlon


There are 5 new 2009 Iron Girls today in Crofton Maryland! Five members of Team Terry (including myself) finished the Columbia Iron Girl Triathlon. One of our team members could not race because of last minute medical complications. But being a veteran Iron Girl herself she did the next best thing by coming out and cheering for the rest of us and galvanized the group. Everyone did fabulous. Personally, I finished the Iron Girl in 2:27. My strongest event was the Bike.

I am sure that Terry Hendrix was looking down from heaven and cheering the entire team on. Her spirit was an inspiration while training for the race this last year and she was so thrilled that the pre-school mom’s were doing the race in her name. It is ironic that we started racing for her as a moral booster but it was Terry who gave us the inspiration to go the extra mile. Her never quit attitude helped me conquer my fear of the water. I often would go to the pool and say to myself, “If Terry can go through chemo, I can swim another lap.” Who new I would be able to swim in open water in less then one year from learning something besides the doggy paddle.

I am so grateful to all the people that got me to the finish line yesterday. I have so many people to thank. First of all, I have to thank Team Terry for encouraging me to sign up last November. The Pre-School Mom’s of Crofton Rock. I have secretly wanted to do a triathlon since I saw a mom do one on TV years ago. They gave me the push.

Thank you Kris O’krepki for the lending me her racing bike. Wow—who new you could go that fast. It was totally cool!

I am thankful to my husband who taught me how to swim and introduced me to the bike and watched the kids while I trained.

I am thankful to Mike (who is a 3 time Iron Man) that taught me how to change my gear shifts, rode with me, helped me change tires, gave me lots of pearls of wisdom and encouraged me to sign up for the Mid Maryland Tri Club. He was a Godsend!

Mid Maryland Tri Club was a huge blessing too. They were just what I needed. The support that they gave me was the key to having a phenomenal race. Each one of them helped me in so many ways and gave me encouragement, wisdom, food and friendship. Can anyone ask for more in life? I am eternally grateful.

I am thankful to the Medical Community. The Nurses at Nighttime Pediatrics that cleaned my road rash when I fell off the bike and gave me so much advice. And of course I am forever grateful to Anne Arundel Orthopedic Surgeons for putting me back together. The physical therapist at Waugh Chapel for helping me work through last year’s surgery.
I am thankful for Bikram Yoga. Bikram Yoga of Severna Park & Emily played a big part in my healing process. It gave me a full body work out that was as intense as running a marathon in 90 minutes without the intense pounding on my body. It is my secret weapon of how I kept my strength while I was still healing. I now love Yoga so much that it will continue to be a life long persuite.

I am thankful to Sport Fit. They were a great training ground. I appreciate their daycare, and their great pool. And of course, Arthur who was so fantastic at cheering me on. I will miss his smiling face and him saying “You can do it Mamma.”

I am thankful to Nightmare Graphics for the great race shirts and to Ulman Young Cancer Society for their encouragement and helping us make the connection with Nightmare Graphics.

Also—a big shout out must go to Princeton Sports who are the Nordstrum of the Sporting Goods industry. Stoney helped make sure that I had tires for the bike which they had to specially order. They don’t make wheels like mine since the 1980’s but he got the job done. Also, thanks to Denise who helped me by selling me clipless pedals a week before the race and taught me how to use them so I would not be left in the dust on race day. Without Princeton Sports support I would not have done as well on race day. A thousand thanks!

I am extremely grateful to my Grandmother Iole Kollar who came from Florida to watch me do the Iron Girl. We had Sushi the night before like we did when I was growing up and living together. She has been my best and most wonderful cheerleader all of my life. I can still see her driving the car behind me while I was learning to run for my marathons as a kid. Just having her with me on race day was a source of strength. I love her so much and having her there made all the difference.

Of course no Mom ever does anything spectacular without the thought of their children being close at hand. I am thankful to my 3 little ones for constantly challenging me to be the best Mom that I can be. It was exhilarating when they would run with me when I came into the neighborhood on training runs, or how they came outside to watch as I tried to learn to not fall off the bike.

Also special thanks go out to Christine Kellar for trying to tell our story because some stories grow past the individual and become about us all.

Most of all, I am forever grateful to each person, who reached out with emails, facebook postings, phone calls, and prayers. Each high five, and encouraging word helped me get across the finish line—this support was immeasurably important. Each word spoke directly to my heart.

Finishing the Iron Girl Triathlon has taught me that all dreams can come true, but when we cross the finish line, it is because of the love and support of so many people that helped lift us up to our full potential. A million thanks to everyone!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Team Terry is made up of 5 Mom's that are doing the Iron Girl Triathalon this Sunday, Aug 23rd. One of the Ladies in our group wrote these words to define why we are participating in the race. I thought her words were so poignant that I wanted to post her thoughts.
Team Terry had the humblest of beginnings. The idea of participating in the Columbia Iron Girl arose over a conversation between several mothers talking in a group after dropping their kids off at preschool. A couple of us were turning the big 4-0 and wanted to do something to commemorate the year. What better way to prove your youth than to participate in your first ever triathlon! Eventually, several other mothers also considered it for various reasons and soon, one by one, each of us would show up at school and say “its official, I registered.” So even though turning 40, or being a strong Mom, might be enough of a reason to want to be an Iron Girl, it’s actually just the beginning of this story.

One particular mom in our group was debating her decision to register for the Triathlon. Her name was Terry Hendrix. While she, like the rest of us, wanted to do something out of the ordinary for herself, she had concerns that originated from living with serious complications of Crohn’s disease which might preclude her from training appropriately. She thought on one hand it would be a great way to get in shape and lose a little weight, but on the other hand she was living with complications from Crohn’s disease which might preclude her from training appropriately. She never got the opportunity to think about the decision any further though, because less than two weeks from our original group discussion our friend suffered a seizure and was diagnosed with a rare and very aggressive brain cancer that had spread to her spine. While the rest of us prepared for the race she was in a battle for her life.

Our group, comprised of 5 preschool moms from Crofton Maryland, decided that we would run the race for her. It was our morale booster. We battled the sore, stiff, and pulled muscles while she battled the cancer with chemotherapy and other available treatments. Despite the complications along the way all of us truly believed that Terry would be here to see each of us finish the race. She was the strongest woman that any of us have ever known (emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually) and if anyone could win life’s ultimate battle, Terry could. Unfortunately Terry passed away this Fourth of July at the age of 42 leaving behind a loving husband and 5 year old son.

The five of us have banded together to compete in the Iron Girl and to commemorate the life of Terry Hendrix by swimming, biking and running in her honor. Everyone on Team Terry got involved with the triathlon for different personal reasons; however the death of our dear friend has made this event something bigger than us. It is our intent to take Terry’s memory to the end of the course on race day. We will be racing in shirts that will say Team Terry on the front and her favorite quote on the back: “Love Life and Never Look Back.”

The five Crofton mothers that comprise Team Terry and will be participating in the Iron Girl race in Terry Hendrix’s memory are: Laurel Landry, Jena Cochrane, Cindy Wood, Karen Kuhn, Sarah White, and Carol Streeter. Look for the purple shirts (designed for us by Nightmare Graphics).


Friday, August 7, 2009

The Great Sadness


If there is one thing to be said about me it is that I am a Pollyanna at heart. I am constantly looking at the world through rose colored glasses—sometimes ad nauseam. Nevertheless, even Pollyanna gets depressed. The last several weeks have been a time of “great sadness” as William P. Young coins the term in his book The Shack. Lately, the sadness has been coming in great waves. They wash over me from time to time throughout the day and make me very sleepy and melancholy. My sadness is due to dealing with the death of 5 people in the last 4 months. Three of the people lived to old age—2 did not. These 2 deaths have rocked me to my core.

Ironically it is not dealing with death that has me so sad. It was the sheer senselessness of these 2 deaths that insulted my sensibilities. People are not supposes to die young. The one person who died was in her early 40’s. Within 24 hours another friend of mine was crushed by a miscarriage. She lost a baby that she was overjoyed about the week before. I was struck by the randomness of the world and its arbitrary nature. Neither person deserved their fate. There was no divine justice at work in either of these situations and no way to explain the events besides ‘bad things happen’. The last time that I felt this sad is when I had to deal with the death of a young child. Events like these bring up all sorts of questions. Isn’t there a God? Why does this happen? Why can’t God wipe away this type of suffering?

I understand that a lot of suffering in the world happens because we as humans make bad decisions and thus the bad things can be explained. However, these deaths are totally arbitrary. This is Nature at work—and these events are as chaotic to the brain as the random effects of a tidal wave or a hurricane are to the sea shore. I am furious at God! Can this really be his will? In an attempt to feel better I think about Rabbi Kushner’s book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People. His words bring me a sense of peace where I have not found much:

Life is not fair. The wrong people get sick and the wrong people get robbed
and the wrong people get killed in wars and in accidents. Some people see
life’s unfairness and decide, “There is no God; the world is nothing but chaos.”
Others see the same unfairness and ask themselves, “Where do I get my sense of
what is fair and what is unfair? Where do I get my sense of outrage and
indignation, my instinctive response of sympathy when I read in the paper about
a total stranger who has been hurt by life? Don’t I get these things from
God? Doesn’t He plant in me a little bit if his own divine outrage at
injustice and oppression, just as he did for the prophets of the Bible? Isn’t my
feeling of compassion for the afflicted just a reflection of the compassion he
feels when he sees the suffering of his creatures?” …No one ever promised us a
life free from pain and disappointment. The most anyone promised us [is]
that we would not be alone in our pain, and that we would be able to draw upon a
source outside ourselves for the strength and courage we would need to survive
life's tragedies and life's unfairness.
In essence it is our connection to others that makes the random tragedies in life tolerable. Although the answer to why bad things happen is illusive [and a question that scholars will argue about for another thousand years] I am comforted by our resiliency as human beings to overcome the unimaginable. This resiliency is found inside of me, and is strengthened by my connection to others in my life. In the simplest terms, life is about the comfort that we give and receive. In essence this is the divine grace of God. It is our resiliency, the comfort of others, and the hope of a new day that will carry my heart through “the great sadness” when life does not make sense.