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Source: Tracy Korn
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Tomorrow morning I'll get into the lake at 5:30 for 3,000 yards. The sun won't be up just yet, but I've grown to prefer it that way. I like the feeling of beating it out the door. The friendly rivalry we've established over the year.

I've grown to love riding out soaking wet, ponytail sticking to my back from underneath my helmet. It takes about five miles before it's completely dry and blowing in the wind behind me.

After 60 miles I'll come back to my car, check for new tan lines on my upper thighs, and smile to find them among the previous weekend's fading predecessors. I'll sit in my passenger's seat to change into my running shoes, and inadvertently stare at the chain grease imprint on my calf that's always there after my rides, and always in the same relative position. Yet I'm always surprised.

And I'll run. I'll feel great or horrible, or something in between, but after 10 minutes I'll only feel alive, and that's what I'll think about until that point. After this, maybe people or a person, a task yet to do or one newly remembered but forgotten to have done. And maybe a swear words or two. Then for no apparent reason I'll notice a caterpillar or a dragonfly crawling on some random leaf, and this will provoke only God knows what new random avenue of thought.

Finally, and before I know it, I'll be finished with 9 miles. And I'll stop. Look at my hands and wrists and the brand new veins that only make cameo appearances every so often like this, and I'll think... how strange to see these veins in my hands and wrists. Always there, and always in the same relative position. Yet I'm always surprised.

I'll drive home trying not to stare at them, but utterly surrender to the temptation at every single stop sign and red light. And when I cross back over the threshold from this world of mine into my house, I'll look again, and they'll be gone.

But I'll smile, because I'll have seen them. And I'll know they're in there. In me.

Waiting for next time.

Tracy Korn
Tracy is a language assistance program coordinator and English teacher at an alternative high school for at risk students in the Midwest. She is currently training for Ironman Wisconsin, 2007. Contact information: tracy@throughth3wall.com.