Towards the beginning of 2010, Israel found himself perusing the web and ended up at trifind.com.  He had recently decided he wanted to become a triathlete.  I’m not entirely sure what or who inspired him, but that’s what he had set his mind to.  On the bottom of the webpage, he saw a link for triathlon coaching.  Just out of curiosity he searched Michigan, and then the U.P.  To his surprise, there was a match:  Northwoods Endurance:  Personalized endurance coaching for all levels of triathletes. 

It caught his attention, but it wouldn’t have been enough for him to actually be interested.  Then, he read one of the perks being discounts on Xterra wetsuits.  Being the aspiring triathlete that he was, he had been looking into buying a wetsuit.  So, without consulting his wife, he decided to give Northwoods Endurance a call to see what he could arrange to get the discount, but not the coaching.  He met with Rick and Chris, two young guys that work and study at Tech, but are also level 1 certified USAT coaches.  This was just a side thing they had started.  Even though their coaching fees were low and affordable, it was much to my chagrin that Israel came back home with news that he was going to buy a brand new Xterra wetsuit for “dirt cheap” AND he now had a triathlete coach.  What in the world.  This was not something I was pleased to hear about.  Not only had Israel just blown hundreds of dollars on a bike and the gear, now he was going to blow a couple hundred more on a wetsuit AND he hired a coach.  The worst part of all was that Israel hadn’t even started any sort of regular exercise to back this hobby up!

After our wallets somewhat recovered from the initial blow and as time went on, I began to see how the best investment that Israel had made was working with Rick.  When he completed his first tri, the Hawk-I, I was so proud I had to hold back tears.  And it was truly inspiring to see how he went from barely being able to run a mile (and hating it), to eventually running a half-marathon.  It felt like he was really gaining too much for what he was paying for.

Towards the end of 2010, Israel came up to me one day after getting off the phone with David and said, “Judy, I want you to do the Hawk-I this year while I watch the boys and just support you.”  David had just told Israel that he decided not to race in the Hawk-I again this year so he could support Tennille as she did her first tri.  She wanted to do the Hawk-I.  So, thanks to the Shins, Israel was inspired to do the same for me.  The problem was that I had never said I wanted to do a triathlon. 

Israel had been persistently trying to get me into triathlons for some months now.  But I just couldn’t commit to it.  I was graciously given a bike by some good friends of ours and I trained for the Belle Isle Triathlon where I did the 12 mile bike portion.  But it was tough to find time to even train for that.  Right before the race started, I remember nursing Ty in my biking outfit and spandex and thinking to myself how ridiculous I must look.  It was super-fun, but I didn’t see it going anywhere at least at that time.

We invited Rick and Chris over for dinner.  Israel wanted me to start thinking about getting into triathlons.  My sister, Julie, was visiting us before she moved to Guam.  All I remember was how we told them stories about how we hauled hundreds of pounds of Lake Superior rocks on our backs for our low-budget landscaping job.  No interest in triathlons for me.  Not yet.

In January of this year, Ty was weaned.  Soon after, I went to Guam for two weeks to visit my sister.  We were super-active.  I played tennis, hiked, swam, scuba-dived, and skydived.  When I came back home, I was ready to commit.  I wanted a physical challenge and this seemed to be just the thing.  I decided I wanted to do the Hawk-I in June.  Israel was in full support.

We invited Rick and Chris over again.  I filled out the paper work and basically signed my life away.  Okay, not quite, but close.  Christopher Schwartz officially became my coach.  I purchased a 3 month membership to the SDC and my training began.  For 6 days a week, I was given work-outs.  Sundays were long runs.  Mondays and Fridays were on the bike.  Tuesdays and Thursdays, I was at the pool.  Wednesdays were tempo or interval runs.  The only time I had guaranteed to train was early in the morning before the boys woke up, so I would wake up at 6am and be at the SDC from 6:30-8am.  I pushed hard but limited myself to what I was assigned to do.  That provided the perfect balance for my training. 

As a member of Team Revolution, I had to think of a mission project to race for.  When the Bonellos and Justin Kim informed us about Tread on Trafficking and Love 146, the decision was easy.  This was it.  I would race to help put an end to child sex slavery and exploitation.  Tennille was on board too.  With this cause came motivation to train and to raise awareness about it.  Everything was falling into place.   

I must say that my coach was pretty awesome.  I began with hardly any experience in swimming and biking.  He patiently worked with me and answered too many of my ridiculous questions.  And I learned.  It was encouraging to see such apparent progress and marked improvement.  The journey to my first triathlon was sweet, but it was about to come to an end.  Sunday, June 5th, 2011 was right around the corner.

I was almost there.