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My husband wonders why I don’t just wait to race and qualify next year like I planned.  I didn’t look for this opportunity. I’ve raised tens of thousands of dollars for charity in connection with  IRONMAN and other races.  I’ve qualified for Kona twice.  I’ve spent countless hours encouraging and supporting women in our sport for  nothing more than the pure joy of it.  I did not seek out this opportunity. I didn’t expect it, but when it was presented to me something about it felt right. The opportunity to raise money to further the every day woman’s chance to live a happier and healthier life through triathlon?  To me that’s a win / win situation.  And all it will take is for me to train to the best of my ability, be presented with a good day on October 10, and find 177 friends to support with $1 per mile . . .  or more if you are so inclined!

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Women For Tri board members will fundraise to grow women’s participation in triathlon at the 2015 IRONMAN World Championship

After conducting national research to determine the greatest barriers to women’s participation in triathlon, members of the Women For Tri board identified a need to support female athletes at the local level and to create an interactive source of information and resources for female athletes.

Towards this goal, three volunteer board members will participate in this October’s IRONMAN World Championship in Kona in partnership with IRONMAN Foundation, with the aim of raising $75,000 to achieve these goals.

The funds raised by the Women for Tri board in 2015 will be used to:

• Offer grants to local triatedicated to recruiting, training, and supporting emerging female triathletes,
• Create and maintain interactive communication hubs including a website, videos, and other resources for female triathletes of all levels
• Fund grants for college students

Meet the athletes

The board members selected to race for Women for Tri at this year’s IRONMAN World Championship include Katherine Kelly Lang, Kyrsten Sinema, and Moira Horan. Lang, an age-group triathlete from California, has competed in two IRONMAN 70.3 events. She is an original cast member of the most watched daily drama in the world, The Bold and the Beautiful and is also an Emmy® award-winning producer. In addition to being a competitive athlete and an actress/producer, Lang is also an Spokesperson and Ambassador for Breakaway from Cancer.

“Over the last six months, we’ve heard from thousands of women around the country, and their message to us is clear: triathlon helps women live healthy, strong, and confident lives.”

Moira Horan has competed in countless triathlons since 1993, including qualifying for and competing in Kona. She is a certified USA Triathlon coach in New Jersey, founder of the Jersey Girls StayStrong Multisport Club, and co-founder of the Jersey Girls Triathlon. She also raced for FDNY-related charities at all her previous IRONMAN events.
“As a triathlon coach, I’ve watched women transform their lives. I’m excited to build this transformation across the country.”

Kyrsten Sinema, age-grouper from Arizona, is the first sitting member of Congress to complete an IRONMAN competition—and possibly the first athlete to be knocked off a bike by a tumbleweed. Sinema races regularly for charity, including the Martin Richard Foundation and OneFund Boston (the Boston Marathon charity).

“Heart disease remains the number one killer of women in the U.S. Triathlon gives us another tool to help women combat and beat this disease.”

Women for Tri, an initiative launched by IRONMAN and Life Time in 2015, works to increase female participation at all levels of triathlon. The project seeks to identify and diminish primary barriers to entry and mobilize triathlon advocates to encourage and engage female athletes across all distances and representing all athletic abilities. Learn more at http://ironman.com/womenfortri

Originally from: http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/news/articles/2015/06/women-for-tri-launches-fundraising-campaign.aspx#axzz3dk58c8zw

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Frequently asked questions about Women For Tri’s fundraising efforts.

• The Women For Tri board is fundraising through The IRONMAN Foundation’s Fundraising platform—hosted by Crowdrise and Network for Good (two third party fundraising platform providers).

• Crowdrise charges a 3 percent fee which the IRONMAN Foundation will cover so that 100 percent of every dollar raised will go back to the Women For Tri grant funds.

• The IRONMAN Foundation Inc., is a Florida not for profit corporation that is exempt from taxation under Section 501 (c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The Foundation has a federal tax identification number of 65-112979

• All donations are 100 percent tax deductible

• All donors, at the time of donation, will receive an email confirmation of their donation and tax deductible receipt

• All donated funds will be used to create grant programs to support the growth of women in triathlon and leading healthy and active lifestyles

• These grant programs include: individual athlete grants, tri club grants and educational and development tools

Women For Tri’s mission: To identify and diminish primary barriers to entry and mobilize triathlon advocates to encourage and engage female athletes across all distances and representing all athletic abilities.

The IRONMAN Foundation’s mission: To leave IRONMAN’s legacy through philanthropy, volunteerism, and grant making, by supporting various athletic, community, education, health, human services and public benefit organizations around the world.

Originally from: http://www.ironman.com/triathlon/organizations/women-for-tri/fundraising.aspx#ixzz3f4NmXz7K

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And now for me to include my fundraising link https://www.crowdrise.com/womenfortrimoirahoran

And to the entire team:
https://www.crowdrise.com/womenfortri

Spent the weekend in Cape May at a fabulous Delmo Sports event weekend, Escape the Cape.  Usually I just come down and volunteer at the tri on Sunday but this year Steve added a paddle event so I strapped my 14 foot Rhizotomy board on the roof of my car and headed down the Parkway early on Saturday morning.  I don’t usually drive very far with this board and I quickly discovered that it wasn’t really secure on the roof.  Two stops on the Garden State Parkway to adjust the board and I eventually made it to Cape May about a half hour later than expected but still plenty of time to get registered for the paddle event.  There was a 10 plus mph wind out of the north and a very strong chop that we paddled into for the f0r 1-½ miles.  A woman who was spectating from the beach actually said “at one point you guys looked like you were standing still”.  Somehow that made me feel better for the effort that I had made.  One day I hope to have time to actually train to paddle, in the meanwhile I’ll just enjoy getting out there.

Small number of entries in this first-year event, but I met some great paddlers and left with my first ever “first female” finish.  Thanks to Stephen DelMonte for a fabulous event and to Kaenon sunglasses and At the Beach headbands for the great race schwag!

Hoping that my past streak will hold up.  Today’s run sucked!  I wanted to enjoy one more beach run before leaving Marco Island, and thought I had about 1-½ hours till high tide.  Well, storms offshore meant that there was no good surface to run on.  I decided to just enjoy the sights and sounds, not worry about the pace and just run.  Proved to be tough, and hot, and really hard.  Check out my garmin file from today’s run if you want to see just how much it sucked!

However, the sights and sounds will stay with me for a while.  There is nothing like the sound of the water hitting the shore and washing over the shells.  Just beautiful!

Reading some of the things that a few people have pointed out to me recently has made me very sad and embarrassed, for women in general.  I have tried to filter out as much of the negativity as I can but sometimes it still sneaks in.  And as much as I try not to let it get to me, it’s a very sad testament to women’s behavior.

Generalizations like this — “. . . . the “Women for Tri” board, which is the antithesis of the name. WTC puppets with their own personal agenda and hurting the movement for equality run the board.”

How does anyone make such sweeping generalizations about a group of women who they most likely have never met?  I doubt you know anyone of us, and I know you don’t know me or where I come from, where I’ve been, what I’ve done or what I still hope to do.  But . . .  I don’t agree with you so I must be just an all-around awful person who can be belittled and demeaned both individually and as part of a group on social media.

Why do so many women feel that the only way they can succeed is by putting others down?  That the only way they can win is if others lose?    The only thing keeping them from success is someone else’s success?

The Women for Tri Board of Advisors makes the “Podium” section of Triathlete Magazine.  Very exciting to me, and I’m sure to the rest of the board of advisors, and to the majority of women in the Facebook group (currently just over 3,500 women).  Lots of congratulations, but also other groups of women making comments like why didn’t we get a mention?  Take the comment away from the specific issues — how would you feel if Athlete A had a feature in Triathlete Magazine (or something like that) and Athlete B posts “Why didn’t I get it?”  Just leaves me with a sad and embarrassed feeling about women.

A survey is put out.  What’s suggested? Well, first let’s belittle the skills of the creators of the survey, and then suggest that it be filled out multiple times by an individual.   Wow. I guess no one felt that “playing fair” would give the response they wanted?  Again, just leaves me sad and embarrassed.

I for one knew absolutely ZERO about 50 women for Kona before getting bombarded (and not very nicely) once I was selected as one of the Women for Tri Board of Advisors by IRONMAN and Life Time Fitness.  Once I heard about it, I read up on it, did my own research and made my own decision.  No one told me what to believe, what to say, how to say it, when to say it or anything else.  “Corporate politics” has never been my forte, in fact I have always sucked at it.  As most who know me will agree — I tend to say what I feel, when I feel it and how I feel regardless of the consequences.  Even more so at this stage of my life.  I have nothing to prove, nothing to win and nothing to lose.  I’m my own person, I’m very happy with the person that I am, with what I do and with what I feel I still can do.

The Women for Tri initiative has a mission, 50 women for Kona has a mission, lots of other groups also have missions.  They are not the same in the specifics.  I personally don’t feel that if any one group succeeds that it is somehow tied to the other’s failure.  I’ve never operated like that in my life.  The more women, hell the more people that I can bring with me on my journey the better as far as I’m concerned.

I could go on and on with so many more examples.  Do I single out any one group for discrimination in our Facebook group?  Ask the Isagenix people, the Beach Body coaches, the Team Betty people, everyone in the group who has a bike shop or other business and every woman who is racing for a charity and “shared her story”.  I’m picking on all of them I guess.  What’s funny is that others within the board of advisors wanted much stricter rules and consequences for the Facebook group, I was the one who fought (and won!) to make them softer and more forgiving.

My goal is nothing less than seeing EVERYONE who gives their best accomplish whatever goals they set in life.  I know that if I try my best, and if I still fail it’s just because I failed. I do know that the reason I failed isn’t because someone else succeeded.

My feelings towards people I’ve never met in person — I try to remember to have respect for you while we get to know each other.  I have even greater respect for someone who may not agree with my feelings and beliefs, but still respects me as a person and I respect them.  We are still working together for a common good — making life just a bit better for the next person and that makes my life just a little bit better.

I don’t consider myself a “blogger”, and I may never make this blog public as it will just become fodder for more negativity on social media.

I do have feelings and the constant bombardment wears on me.  I know better than to try to debate an attorney, or people who live their life on social media.  But, being a Brooklyn girl at heart I also don’t give in to bullying 🙂

Hope you had a great weekend, I know I did!

PS:  After keeping this blog post private for over a week I’ve decided to post it publicly.  Let the bashing begin.

I read a long-time triathlon friend’s blog post the other day.  It rang so true for me and I’m sure many others of my friends who spend a good amount of their time living a full life.  It’s always comforting to me when I find someone else in the same spot I am.  Maria Simone, who’s blog is posted as Running A Life posted an entry entitled “Where the @#$%# have I been?”.  Well, talk about relating to a post!  I’ve often said I wish I could send texts, make phone calls, write blogs, emails, etc. directly while I am thinking about them, but that is usually during a workout or while I’m driving and I really try to keep the phone out of reach at those times.  If I’m with friends or family I try to stay in the moment and not “multitask”.  By the time I sit down, and am at a time and place I could actually send them my mind has already moved on to the next 1000 thoughts, and I also usually fall asleep pretty quickly at that point.

And blog posts?  Let me look and see how many unfinished posts I have — there’s “Kicking off the Season”, which I started when I left the cold of the Jersey Shore at the end of December.  There’s “Races and Open Water Swimming”,  a great discussion that my friend Suzanne Atkinson and I were having about our feelings about the changes in swim starts, resting platforms and the like.  I love talking to Suzanne, and I always learn so much from her.  Somehow the conversation and the blog post never got finished.  Then there is the unfinished report of one of many training camps that I’ve held up in Lake Placid “The Beauty of Lake Placid and the Benefits of Coaching”– I always love those trips and try to find the opportunity to write down a “camp recap”, but it never seems to get finished.

I did find one that is definitely getting finished though!  In my closed Facebook group for the Jersey Girls StayStrong Multisport Club there are a few topics that come up regularly throughout the year, one in particular is sports bras.  So, “What Do I Do About a Sports Bra?” — time to revisit the topic and gather the latest offerings and recommendations.

And thanks, Maria — it’s always nice to find out I’m not the only one who can’t keep up with everything.

“It takes courage to push yourself to places you have never been before… to test your limits… to break through barriers. And the day came when the risk it took to stay tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

― Anaïs Nin

So, after weeks of waiting and hoping this would happen I found out yesterday that I am one of the inaugural board members for Women for Tri!  I’ve been holding my breath on this one since I applied and beyond excited about the appointment.

What’s it about?  Well, I guess we shall see.  It will be what each of the members make it.

We are meeting in Tampa next week, stay tuned for updates!

Tough to write that first blog post when you haven’t been writing for a while.

My major accomplishment for today was getting myself out the front door to swim.  Yes, I know I’m in Florida but mid 60s, windy, cloudy and rain showers did not make for an appealing day to swim.  But, I do have a virtual swim team that I am accountable to so after my friend Maria left I dressed for swim, wrote out a practice and posted in my Club’s Facebook group that I was going to swim.

Once I did that I was accountable.  Even more accountable since I  am a member of  a virtual swim team, swimming the distance of the Hudson River this winter.

What happened once I got to the pool?  As most of you would expect, it just went uphill from there.  I had my practice written out, and knew that the faster pace at the end would be tough.  I just haven’t been swimming that fast.  As usual, I worked on focal points as I started, and something made me decide I’d work on alternate breathing.  I committed to at least the first 50 of each of the 100s that I was going to do, and more than just the 50 if possible.

Well, to make the long story short . . . it worked.  I had a great swim, the alternate breathing wasn’t as bad as I expected, and I even managed those last two 100s on 1:45 at the end.

So, nothing profound in this post other than remind each of us that maybe sometimes the hardest thing to do is just get out the door.  If we do that it’s usually all uphill after that!