August 22, 2011

My Sister: My Hero


For as long as I can remember, my sister, Jamie, has been my best friend. We share a lot - hair color, eye color, a love of cooking, food and wine. Over time we both took up running and we started doing races together. Then last year Jamie decided to learn how to swim. Like me she was comfortable in the water, but had not taken lessons. We talked about doing a tri together and thought the Columbia Iron Girl Sprint would be perfect. It was a little too close timing wise so the race came and went but the seed had been planted.


Last November we signed up for the race and with that Jamie's swim training kicked into high gear. Having just learned to swim myself in 2008, I know how challenging, frustrating and humbling it can be. She texted me updates along the way, some about progress and others about how hard it was. But she kept at it and eventually had her breakthrough.

After all the hard work and anticipation, yesterday was the race. We couldn't have asked for a better day, except for maybe skipping the torrential downpour just as we finished setting up transition. We were already soaked before even getting in the water!


A little rain aside, everything went incredibly well. I never got a chance to see her on the course because our waves were so far apart, but I quickly found her husband after I finished and we waited for her together. He let me know that she looked great after the swim and bike and was feeling good. Seeing her run down the finish chute was amazing because I know how hard she worked to be there. Triathlon is a daunting sport to dive into. It's scary. And in life it's so much easier to avoid the scary things even though tackling them is so rewarding. I've never started a tri and felt I was guaranteed to finish. So many things can go wrong and keep you from crossing that line, so every finish is a huge victory. But on that perfect Sunday, two sisters crossed the same line and were there to celebrate together. It was a really special day. Congrats to Jamie and welcome to the crazy world of triathlon!

9 comments:

  1. Laura Waringo likes this. :)

    :thumbs up:

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  2. Laura Waringo likes this.

    :thumbs up:

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh! I think I posted my comment twice. Well, anything worth saying is worth repeating, right? Or maybe that's not right. But I will use comment #3 to say:

    CONGRATULATIONS TO JAMIE!

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  4. congrats to your sister! so cool for you to be able to share and experience triathlon together. love that last pic!

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  5. Congrats to your sister! (And to you of course :) ).

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  6. Congrats to you and your sister!! I love that you've gotten her into endurance sports:)

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  7. I saw the title and knew I needed a box of tissues to read this! I am so glad we got to do this together (and can't wait to do it again). It was truly an amazing event. Thank you for all of the words of wisdom and encouragement along the way, especially when I started to feel like I couldn't do it!!

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  8. Great post! Made me a little misty eyed. So proud of you both. Hope to one day see you race together. See you both in Madison.

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  9. Aw, I love this! Congrats to Jamie. And what a great thing that you both got to share! :)

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