stay in the game

I need to take my husband's temperature.

I think he has a fever.

Ironman Fever (Thanks Boon for that :-)

He called me yesterday and confessed. I want to do that again.... he said. I know I can go a 9:40 on that course. All I could do was smile and hold back from screaming. No, he doesn't regret turning down Hawaii. He hated that course. Ironman Florida.... it's made for the guy.

He admitted that he gets it. He gets why Ironman and I have had such a run together. despite our current breakup, Ironman and I I will have a reconciliation. In 2010. First things first however. 70.3 and I broke up bit ago and we need to make things right.

I have to admit that it excited me to pieces. Go for it. I told him.

This morning I woke up too early. I was supposed to be on the bike by 4am but I was sitting with a certain 8 year old who told me..... 8 isn't that much fun so far. I can't blame the kid, he's had a fever ever since he turned eight on Sunday. The poor kid has even been hurfing (his word for barfing). So the ride was cancelled and shifted when I found myself rocking his nausea away from his burning up little body.

I had one goal as I approached the pool this morning. Keep myself in the game. No matter what, even if the STUDS lapped me I would remain in the game. I would swim 90 minutes straight if I had to. Which is easy to do when you are swimming with Mark (96 Olympic trialist and last year swam a 1:46 for the 200 free. I know, I hurfed too.)

It was a light group in the STUD lane. No Grimm. Just Bill M, Dr Les, Rauni Mark and I. Bill and I shared lane 2 as we always do.

Bill M. is perhaps the nicest guy in the world. Actually, so are all my lane mates.

I know I am having a good swim when I can stay ahead of Dr. Les. Which I will dearly pay for when he cracks me tomorrow...... bastard's my chiropractor. So I carefully pulled myself ahead of him.

You know where you are in swimming. On one side of me I have the Boomers, on the other side of me I have my fellow Studs. Scott W. is a freaking great sandbagging BOOMER, he should be in with us. On our sets of 500's if we started at a similar time I could see him ahead of me, but by the second 200 I can always catch him. And on the other side I was staying ahead of Les.

Stay in the game Eggers.

I remember hitting the wall after the first one and gasping "Did I make it?"

Bill and Mark cheered me on.

Then I made the second one. And the third. I thought I was hallucinating as I saw Ken on the deck, man's recovering from a broken neck sustained at Longhorn. Did I not tell that story???? The guy walked around for 3 days with a fractured C1. He walked around for days with a nurse and 2 physicians telling him to HTFU.

L.U.C.K.Y.

We ground out 5,000 yards this morning. I stayed in the game. It was heaven. So heavenly that when I was pulling 8 X 100's at the end I touched the wall and heard Coach Lorie laugh.

"She's been turned and tanned on both sides. She's done."

Yeah I guess I was.

It was one of those mornings where I showed up at my internship at the law firm with my grownup clothes on and Starbuck's in hand.... feeling this quiet sense of pride for a little ride through the five corners of hell this morning.

It's not something you need to announce and pound your chest about (except when writing on your blog.....). But it's a feeling you quietly walk around with.

Knowing I took the reach, and the kick and the pull. And got outside of my comfort zone. Which, in swimming I spent my life in that area. The past few years within. It is only now that I am venturing back out......