IRONTEAM KICK OFF WEEKEND

The Ironteam Season Officially Begins this weekend!

I'm in Las Vegas, attending my friend's Rebecca & Mike's wedding at the Bellagio. Very posh! I'm staying at the Flamingo across the street. It has a section of the pool dedicated to lap swimming and I fully intend to keep to my training schedule. Sin City will not corrupt me! I've arranged to run with the Las Vegas Track Club Sunday morning. http://www.lvtc.org/ A van's picking me up at my hotel at 6:00 a.m. for their weekly long run. I'm running 10 miles on Sunday in preparation for the Nike Women's Marathon on October 23. Originally, I was training for the full marathon, but I've scaled back to the half. Tonight I'm going out with everyone from the UK and tomorrow morning I'll swim.

I'm sorry to miss kick-off and meet all of my teammates for the first time, but I'm so pleased to be here to share Rebecca & Mike's wedding. I've been looking forward to it for a long time! I surprised them a liquid refreshment room service delivery to their room when they arrived. It really did surprise them! Yay!

Swim Girl or the absolute beginning. . .

Swim Girl

Here I am, age 3.5, in my favorite bathing suit of all time in San Diego, CA. You can't see the front which had a wonderful "real" anchor in between the suit & the mesh overlay. I loved that suit!

When the Santa Ana winds were blowing and the heat was unbearable, my Mom would dress me in my bathing suit when I first woke up in the morning. We played lots of water games outside and my Dad buried our small wading pool (with built in slide) in the ground so it was almost real! I loved those days. Looking back now as a parent, they must have been torture for my cold-climate loving mother.

Okay, I'd said I'd go back to the beginning but this is probably tooooo faaaarrr baaacccckkk, although training will last for many more days, weeks & months!

This will be a journal following my training, fundraising and mental journey to Ironman Canada. I don't have a pre-defined format, so prepare yourself for stream of conciousness-esque reading. It will, hopefully, be entertaining. To paraphrase my friend and former teammate, Michele (http://drip-dry.blogspot.com/), you can help without breaking a sweat.

As I go back and update, be sure to check old posts since I'll try to use the historical date for catch-up posts. I'll also be peppering my posts with some of my favorite inspirational quotes that I tortured my mentees with last season. Things like:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
-Margaret Mead

Remember we're curing cancer here people, one mile at a time!

Thank you again for your support!

. . .and the journey begins!

I'm training for Ironman Canada on August 27, 2006 in Pendicton Canada! While training, I am raising $7,500 for the Leukemia Lymphona Society for research & patient services.

To donate click here!

http://www.active.com/donate/tntsvmb/tntsvmbBTucker1

This is going to be a long and arduous journey so I've decided to document it. This way my family, friends and donors can track my progress and share in my experiences.

I started this journal in March but through the magic of technology, I'm able to go back in time to bring you up to date. My posts will be more detailed once they make it to March 2006.

Please feel free to leave comments or ask any questions. If you notice I've left out a key memory, let me know right away!

Thank you for your support and encouragement. I can't conceive of doing this without all of you!

Love,

~Beverly