Kelp, Beautiful Kelp

This morning I had some alone time and decided to decorate my running tank top with all the names of the people I know or have heard of through my donors and friends to remember during the race--you can see their names in the column on the left of this blog page. I decided to do that and also to Sharpie their names onto my skin so they will always be with me on the race, not just for the run. It was a nice quiet moment as I reflected on the challenges that these people have faced and turned my attention away from me for awhile.

This afternoon we headed down for our practice swim to Lover's Point on our bikes, with all our swim gear stuffed into backpacks. A lovely day, low 70's, breezy and blue skies. We wet-suited up together (always a spectacle) and got our pep talk on the beach by Coach Julie. (Coach Glen actually could not come to our triathlon due to health issues that surfaced suddenly.....we are all sad about that.) Then in we dove! At the moment you pull your wetsuit out around the neck to get the big bubble of cold water in, it's quite exhilarating, shall we say! Then as I began to swim, I noticed my face feeling cold. I quickly adjusted to that when the kelp got my attention. This is no pansy kelp we are talking about, it's big bold tall graceful Amazon kelp. Comes right up to the surface and causes a muffled stalling slap when your arm comes down on it. It means business. Like that black knight in the Holy Grail, it says, "NONE SHALL PASS!" But I discovered how to deal with it. I laughed at it! Ha-ha! You big beautiful scary kelp, you think you can stop me or scare me, but you can't!! At times, I felt like I was in a veritable forest, and literally pulled myself along by the stalks. At other times, it was blessed clear salty ocean water. I kept my sense of humor, and kept "loose", as one of my friends advised. I persevered. And I did quite well. We only did one lap today around the buoys. Tomorrow in the race, we do two. But I will be confident, because I've got the kelp's number, and I love the salt water, and I will keep my sense of humor.

Tonight is our carbo-loading pasta dinner, with inspirational speakers, no doubt, and a team meeting in which Glen will be patched in by speakerphone to pump us up. Then I hope to get a good night's sleep before the early morning wake-up time of 4:15! I picked up my packet today and discovered that my start time tomorrow is 9:15am. Plenty of time to fret. Send positive thoughts, PLEASE!