Race Morning. The day was supposed to be hotter, but with less wind than they'd had for the long course race the day before. I figured that was a fair trade as I looked out over the lake while wrapping up in a blanket, not quite awake yet but definitely no longer asleep.

This morning it was storming like somebody had better be building an arc. I think it was around 2:00 a.m. when I heard the thunder, and had a hard time getting back to sleep after that - not because it was such a torrential storm

Have you had yours yet? When you first feel race season in the air for the year, when you first glimpse what it is exactly that you're a part of, and how you are one of so few people? It's amazing.

Girl Scout cookies are evil. Understand here that there are varying degrees of demon in the Girl Scout cookie realm, however Satan himself is the cookie incarnate Caramel deLite – a.k.a., Samoa.

I’ve spent a long time fighting and striving and breaking and rebuilding, and I’ve spent a long time in the face of something thinking it was the way to conquer that which would stand before me, in my way.

I think it’s context… I train and race for context.

Sometimes I see my life in movie clips; the ending scene where the anthem music builds in the background as I walk from a swim, hair still damp, to my car in the misty, rain-soaked parking lot. Victorious.

Chapter Two.

Chapter One.

Along the way, we discover the real reasons for why we first begin. And from this far out and this long gone, I can finally see why I did. I have lots of titles, so it was never about the procuring and pinning of another. It was never about an accolade, or even about acquiring a smattering of recognition for having 'taken on'. I have lots of accolades. And have been plenty recognized.