Journey to IRONMAN: The AZ TRI Club

I have said it before and I will say it again.  IRONMAN may be an individual's race, but TRIATHLON is a team sport.  It has to be.  There are simply too many hours spent training to spend them all with yourself.

I have never given much thought to being party of a club or racing team for 1 big reason.  I have never thought myself good enough or fast enough to be a part of an "official" club.  Triathlon is truly the great equalizer and moving away from all of my known training buddies/places has necessitated finding a team.  I need help, encouragement, support and people who are just as driven and crazy as me.  So I sought out a club.

I had heard of the AZ Tri Club from a fellow triathlete and friend, so I started there.  In the past 5 months I have slowly met countless individuals who are all part of this really awesome team.  Some are IRONMAN (some are multiple IRONMAN), some are just getting into the sport.  Some are incredibly fast (as in take the podium in their age group fast!) while others are a little more like me, content with a finishing status.  But one thing remains the same across the board.  We all know that Triathlon is a big sport and are seeking friendship, camaraderie and to be part of something greater than ourselves.  It's really cool.

Well, this past month I became an official officer of the TRI Club and have stepped in to not only being a part of a TRI club, but leading a TRI club.  No, I'm still not fast, but I am learning something really big.  It's not always about speed, but rather about heart.  People of all shapes and sizes race so we need people of all shapes and sizes to lead.

It's a really exciting time too because the Club is in somewhat of a transition status as the leadership is changing and we are ending one year and starting a new one.  We are working on sponsors and race calendars, social events and training plans.

Me and the VP of our club, Bridgit, had the great opportunity to take part in an Xterra Trail Race last minute this past weekend.  As a sponsor they needed some leaders to show up and race.  We were only too happy!

It's a great feeling to be part of something bigger than me, but moving towards the same goal.  It's nice to have a buddy (or several buddies) to swim open water at 530AM.  I love the spirit of the Club and look forward to wearing my AZ TRI Club gear when I cross the IRONMAN line.

The Longmire Remodel: In Progress

Oh man guys, this month has been a poor showing at best on the blogging front.  Wow.  I think this month can be summed up on one great sentence: "You simply can't do it all." September rolled in like a lion and hasn't let up.  It's honestly going to take me a few blogs to get you all caught up, but truly between mothering my children, being a photographer (favorite gig after Mom), becoming an officer in the AZ TRI Club (yeah...more on that later), training for the ever looming IRONMAN season (2016 here I come!), running my Jamberry business (which is so fun), being a wife and trying to have friends we have also decided to take on the enormous project of changing out our floors (we just might be nuts). I pulled up my blog today and saw that I have written 2 blogs this month and sat here going....."yup, that makes sense."

Our awesome neighbors came over the other night to see our "House in Progress."  Upon seeing the state in which we are living, Kim turns to me and says, "Man Bethany, I hope you are blogging about this.  When it's finished you are really going to want to see the transformation."  I want to blog....I really do, but I also want to get it done.  Alas, I figure I should sit down and tell the story.....rather the journey of our endeavors.

It all started about 3 weeks ago.  I was in Colorado when I got a phone call that our cat Bryce had once again peed on our carpet.  We had been dealing with his behavior for a few weeks and I was completely and entirely grossed out.  Our carpet was already covered in previous owners pet stains so the addition of our cat just brought to light the disgust.  So I told Bob to rip out the carpet.  At that point concrete was better than that.  Yuck.

So we got the carpet out.  It kind of triggered an avalanche of project and we decided to tackle our floors.  All our floors.  Well, everything but the bedrooms and bathrooms.  Its about 1000 square feet of space.  It's big.

We ventured the removal of the kitchen tile first.  Unfortunately the previous owners installed the tile over laminate so it made the removal more challenging.  Sheer brute force was required to break the tiles and then we swept up the shards.  My house is covered with a layer of tile dust, and we only had 2 minor kid cuts, but hey.....the tile is gone.

Then came the wood.  Oh the wood.  I am sure you are all wondering, why would we remove wood from our house.  2 fold: It was laid in opposing directions throughout the house and it literally breaks up the house.  The wood was laid in the office and down the hallway.  Somewhat nonsensical.  It had to go.  We got one tiny piece off and realized that the previous installers had industrially glued down every inch of every piece of wood.  Every inch.  Nightmare.  Before we perfected our chisel, hammer and crowbar method, it was taking us on average 5-10 minutes per wood piece.  The task at hand felt nearly impossible.  Thankfully, my husband is resourceful and he figured to use chisels to get under the wood.  Its been a slow, arduous process.  Everything hurts, we have blisters, but we now only have a few more square feet before we are done.

And Yes.....we are even changing the fireplace.  We are contemplating going really big and changing the fireplace from an indoor one to an outdoor one.  The other side of that wall is our patio.  That won't happen for a while.  If at all.  I may just give up and drywall over the thing.  Go big or go home I guess....I am confident that the finished product will look great.  Stay tuned.....its gonna take a while, but at least we are in progress.