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Well.  I haven’t done a very good job of keeping on top of race report blogs and now I’m 3 races late.  I don’t want to make this a book, so I will be brief with my race reports and stick to the main lesson I think I learned this season.  So here we go…

Prior to the Boyne City Triathlon I was not feeling all that great.  Although I am very proud of the race results I have had this season in Arkansas, Grand Rapids and Illinois, I just wasn’t feeling like myself.  I know that can come across wrong because when I was trying to explain how I felt to my family, they would get very confused and say “but you won your age group at Arkansas, you were on the podium in Grand Rapids and you won in Illinois, what’s wrong?”  Good question.  It’s hard to explain, but a fellow triathlete and friend of mine, the amazing Tarra DaPrato, got it when after the Boyne Triathlon she asked if I felt more like me and the resounding answer was YES!  So I will try to explain.  I wouldn’t call myself a really confident person, but I do have a certain amount of confidence.  I race with the confidence that I am strong and I have worked hard, meaning I will race well, more or less.  But this season every time I stepped up to the water I felt less.  In Arkansas I battled my way through terrible muscle cramps, an unknown course length and crazy conditions to, as I say, win a race of perseverance. In Grand Rapids I again had to battle through muscle cramps and fought my way to 2^nd place.  In Illinois, once again, the heat got the better of m, but my training hours and fitness paid off big and I was able to win 1^st place.  But never in those races did I feel like ME.  I never felt like I was strong, I never felt like I was killing it.  After Arkansas, my attitude slowly got worse and worse.  The cherry on top of my pity Sunday was Age Group Nationals.  Writing my blog after that race helped, but I was still pretty mired in my bad attitude when I stepped to the starting line at the Ionia XTERRA.  Honestly, my chain snapping was the best thing that could have happened to me.  It was like a wake up slap in the face.  Life does not always go my way and just because I got dealt a crummy hand doesn’t mean I have the right to sulk and pout and feel sorry for myself.  I had to ask myself: Why do you race?  I’ve asked myself this question many times and I’ve come up with many different answers.  That day, walking my mountain bike along the trail and watching racer after racer go by, I felt like I actually understood my answer for the first time: Because I can.  I think I’ve said that before, but I actually felt that answer in every inch of myself.  And I carried my  broken chain in one hand, pushed my bike with the other and smiled. 

I arrived in Boyne nervous, but hopeful that my improved attitude would hold.  All I wanted in that race was to find myself again.  And I was incredibly blessed to have THE Hunter Kemper at that race unknowingly give me the biggest boost in finding myself that anyone could ever give me.  Just before my wave went off, Hunter announced to the ladies of the sprint wave “$5 for every guy you catch!”  Oh yeah baby, game on!!  The horn went off and I flew to that first buoy and never slowed down.  I know I’ve never swam that fast in my entire life!  I caught so many men and  I felt like ME.  Not because I caught men, although that was awesome, but because I felt the joy and the love of racing, of just being there on the course because I wanted to be there and because I could be there and because I was having a freaking BLAST!  I ran out of the water, pointed at Hunter and called “You owe me a lot of money!”  Being a good sport, he laughed and said back “Yes I do!”  I had a GREAT race!  I raced the men and caught as many as I could, with Hunter encouraging me to catch as many as possible on the run.  During the awards ceremony he announced that my husband had won the sprint, but said “Wait until you hear his girl’s time!” and after announcing my name said “This girl chicked so many men!”  All I could do was laugh and smile.  The race itself and the chicking of many men didn’t really matter because I was back!  And by back, I mean I found that 8-year-old in a foot race joy.  I’ve had a long sports career of competing and, let’s be honest, I replaced my competitive soccer career with a competitive triathlon career because I was trying to fill a void.  It was the part of myself that always wondered why do you do this?  Why do you wake up so early?  Why do you train so hard?  There are going to be terrible, disappointing races, just like there were terrible, disappointing games that my team shouldn’t have lost or shots that I definitely should not have missed.  And if we can’t find the joy, then why do we push ourselves so hard?  For me at least, I find this joy off and on.  I find it, then get wrapped up in the idea that I have to win in order to be happy, but I sure had some great wins this year but didn’t feel very happy.  I have a feeling that I will need to find that joy again at some point in the future when I lose sight of my “it” and get distracted by material things, like shiny awards and podiums.  But I’m hopeful that by being aware of this I won’t go an entire summer without my joy! 

Getting a high-five from Mr. Hunter Kemper at the awards ceremony!

Okay, sermon over!  Hopefully you’re still with me :) The weekend after Boyne I raced the Come Clean Duathlon in Lansing and I also got the perfect set up for that race!  My best friend and wonderful training partner who moved to Illinois for work, Sara Dumich, was back for the weekend to visit AND I convinced Eric Abbott to drive from Grand Rapids and race for the second day in a row.  And we had a blast!  Come Clean is a very well run race with a fun course and lots of smiling volunteers.  And, not that I’m getting distracted by shiny awards yet, they also have some VERY cool awards created by a local artist!  I had a joyful race, although I have to say Chris Vincent’s pace for the first run was not quite so joyful for me!  Ouch!!  Seriously, there are some very speedy ladies in this race!  And Team USA’s Oakie Vanessa Cook wasn’t even racing!

Podium and very cool awards!  My bestie, Sara, took 3rd!

I only had a few short days after the duathlon to get ready for my race in Utah.  Maybe some people are wondering why in the world I was doing a race in Utah.  Allow me to explain… my family has been skiing at Snowbasin in Ogden, Utah for a while now and I absolutely love it out there!  I love Eden, the smaller town where we usually stay, and I love the mountains and just being out there.  One year, I heard about this triathlon that races from the reservoir that we drive around to get to Snowbasin and then bikes up the mountain to Snowbasin with a trail run on the mountain.  To some people, that sounds like a terrible idea.  Who races up a mountain?!  To me, it sounded like the coolest thing I had ever heard of!  One problem: I didn’t know how to mountain bike.  So last fall I bought myself a mountain bike and started to learn.  It was painful at first, but I stuck with it and eventually got decent.  Clearly the next logical step was to sign up for the XTERRA Pan American Championship race in Utah.  Obviously.  And that’s what I did! 

We arrived on Thursday and I pre-rode some of the course on Friday.  Oh boy, was that ever a wake up call!  Mountain biking up actual mountains is very different from mountain biking in Michigan!  Altitude is also different.  And hard.  I became nervous that I wouldn’t be able to finish the bike portion, with over 4300 feet of climbing, but I was going to give it my best effort anyway!  My motto for this race was “Finish smiling and upright.”  Both would be difficult because smiling, well that takes energy I might not have at the end, and upright is not that easy when biking up mountains!  On race morning I was excited and feeling ready to go!  I had my wonderful race Sherpa, my husband Todd Kennedy, with me and we also ran into local mountain biking and XTERRA expert, Dalton, and his lovely new wife (like new as in a few days before the race), Rachel at the race!  It’s always comforting to see some local faces!

Okay, the swim!  The cannon went off and I shot out like, well, hopefully a fish!  I had another strong swim and came out of the water as the second age group female.

Swim start in the reservoir... I'm somewhere in the middle :)

Now on to the bike and the mountain.  The bike course started with a little bit of trail in a field and I almost crashed on the first corner… real strong start, excellent!  I managed to keep my wheels on the dirt, then around the reservoir and on to the first climb.  And by first climb, I mean one of two climbs that each take a solid 40 minutes of JUST climbing.  There is no break.  I eventually had to convince myself that I would need to stop breathing for a few seconds to drink or I would never be able to stay hydrated!  I knew what to expect on the first climb as I had run and ridden part of it in the couple days before the race, so I finished that climb feeling decent!  The downhill section was tricky (and also long!), but an awesome woman caught up to me and was extremely encouraging, yelling that we are killing it, how fun this is and to catch that girl ahead of me, so I did!  Yup, this flat-land girl caught another racer!  We cruised through the rest of the downhill and I was feeling good!  I let the woman past me and then started to work my way up the second climb. 

Feeling okay after climb #1, but ready for some rest on the downhill.

The second climb goes to the top of Sardine Peak… like “peak” as in peak of a mountain at 7,300 feet.  And this was no joke.  There were switchbacks going up, up, up and I couldn’t keep track of how many I had gone past.  My legs began to grow heavy and my head started to ache.  I knew it was signs of the altitude and thin air that my body wasn’t used to starting to affect me.  As I worked my way up the mountain the headache and heaviness grew worse.  I began to wonder if I would be able to finish the climb and made the mistake of looking up and I saw tiny specks on tiny bikes climbing to the peak.  Not even close.  I put my head down and went back to work, slowly moving higher and higher.  Finally I reached the top.  I wasn’t sure if I should cry, lay down on the side of the trail or both!  But there were men coming up behind me, so I kept moving forward and into the downhill section, which was terrifying in its own way with more switchbacks and this crazy staircase thing that I’m not even sure how I stayed upright going down and likely would not be able to repeat that act of balance if my life depended on it! 

I came into transition uncertain about the run and wondering if it would be more of a walk.  And I walked through transition.  I was exhausted!  I could hear Todd cheering, then kind of cutting off when he realized I was not going any faster than a leisurely stroll, so he yelled “you do you!”  Yup, don’t mind if I do!  I did actually start the run at a run, but when Todd asked how I was I just shook my head and thought “nope.  Nope, nope, nope.  Just going to finish, smiling and upright!”  I believe it was the altitude that had contributed to the terrible heavy feeling I had on the bike, because after about a mile of running at a lower elevation (note the base of Snowbasin, where the run started, it at 6,400 feet…) I started to feel better!  My legs responded, which was very good because that run was rock covered, and I started to pick up my pace and started to catch racers.  My headache returned a bit as I climbed to the highest point of the run at mile 4, which was somewhere around 6,800 feet, but overall I was cruising and feeling good!  As I started the last 2 miles of the run, which are mostly downhill, I started to realize that I could actually do this!  I picked up my pace and was able to pass a number of women!  As I neared the finish I could hear Todd cheering for me on one of the last sections, so I gave him a big smile and a wave.  I cruised around the last corner and I could see the finish straight ahead.  Tears started down my face and I was grinning from ear to ear.  I had done it!  The announcer said “And with a big smile, here is Samantha Kennedy of East Lansing, Michigan!”  Apparently my smile was so big, I made it into the short highlight video!  You can catch my goofy grin at 7:24 at this link: https://vimeo.com/183171745

I didn’t find out until long after I finished that I had managed to grab 2^nd in my age group and I was only about 90 seconds behind 1^st place!  That finish also means I qualified for the XTERRA World Championship in Hawaii!  I don’t quite have the budget to go this year, but maybe next year… Just have to convince my Sherpa…

I call this my Moose Podium!  We couldn't stay for awards because we had to catch our flight back to Michigan, so I got my award and took my picture with my favorite Snowbasin Moose, who is typically featured on my Facebook covered in snow!

This has been a bit of a roller coaster of a season, but looking back I wouldn’t change anything.  Okay, except for the trip to the hospital so my family wouldn’t have been so worried about me!  I try to learn from my experiences and I typically find the difficult experiences are the ones we can learn the most from.  Triathlon is a crazy sport.  It can be incredibly expensive and incredibly time consuming.  I have heard of training and racing schedules that have ruined relationships, but I have also heard of training and racing schedules that have strengthened relationships.  After Age Group Nats, my amazing husband told me his finisher medal was for both of us.  At the time, I didn’t understand and I was so upset about my race and too busy feeling sorry for myself.  But he wanted to share that moment with me and he wanted both of us, no matter the outcome, to feel proud of our efforts.  As I sat in the grass after learning I had finished 2^nd in my age group, the tears came again and I gave him a wonderfully sweaty hug (I’m sure he was thrilled about the hug part).  “This medal is for both of us because I couldn’t have done this without you.”  And I didn’t mean the place I finished, that wasn’t the important part.  I meant the hours of training, the changes we have both made in our lives to live this triathlon lifestyle together.  How he always supports my insane dreams and goals, but that he always reminds me to find my joy.  The true inspiration is my husband and other triathletes like my husband.  Todd has always known why he races.  It was never for podium finishes or awards, it was because he wanted to and because he could.  It was because it made him happy and because he could push himself to levels and efforts he didn’t know he was capable of.  My dad is also one of those people and I can’t imagine the number of time those two men in my life have mutually shaken their heads and thought “she just doesn’t get it.”  Hopefully, I’m getting closer to getting “it” and keeping “it!”  But I also have many people, like my husband, like my dad, like my training partner Sara and so many amazing and inspiring athletes on the Oak Park team to remind me to keep the joy.  I always appreciate comments about being inspiring, but I want every one of the Oakies, my husband, my dad and my Sara to know that you all are the inspiring ones and to say thank you from the bottom of my heart.  And someone smack me next time I try to make a pity Sunday! 

Okay!  I have one more race this season and it’s the BIG ONE!  IRONMAN Louisville!  Yikes!  I’m pretty scared, nervous, excited, and every other emotion on that range all rolled up into one!  The goal: finish smiling and upright!