My Inspiration

Post #: 12
Weeks of training complete: 15 weeks, 2 days
Time until Ironman: 16 weeks, 5 days
Miles swam: 55.564
Miles biked: 720.02
Miles run: 210.21

Goal: $5,000
Total money raised: $670

It dawned on me in the last 12 hours that you all – everyone that reads this blog, or thinks about me and/or my family, are really the inspiration for this thing.

For those of you who don't know, I just came back from a very nice four day vacation. I poured back a few cold ones with friends and family at the base of the Sierra Nevadas on Thursday; rafted the Middle Fork of the American River on Friday (check out a video of an awesome rapid called The Chute here), spent Saturday playing paintball on a family friend's private 1,300 acre ranch in northern California (and then BBQing in the afternoon in their 10,000-square foot mountain top home), and Sunday doing a little bit of wine tasting, bocce playing and relaxing at some Russian River Valley vineyards.

It was a nice break from the chaos of the last three or four weeks. When I got back home, it was so wonderful to see my wife and children. The whole time I was in California, I wished they were with me.

I had planned, from the beginning of my training, to take those four days off from working out. But after four days of sleeping in, cocktails and lounging, restarting the workout routine can be incredibly difficult. But a couple of things happened that made me want to work out, badly ... rather they sort of inspired me to.

The first: my mom hinted that my father is considering coming out to see me race. He hasn't confirmed yet, but I guess he's dropping hints (Dad: Mom sold you out). Second: my friend RB made a contribution to the cause today.

I'm constantly amazed that people are willing to spend their hard earned money on my cause, on my race. To me, it's not only like they're making an investment in the community, it's like they're making an investment in me – saying: we believe in you. And when I see that, I can't let them down. It makes me want to succeed more than before.

So to everyone - thank you.

Many of you have asked how things are going lately in our lives. All in all - things are going well. We are very, very blessed to have a home filled with lots of love. Our children are beautiful, warm, caring, compassionate little buggers (even if Beck is prone to tell kids in his nursery school he's going to "shoot them" or "kill them" – true story ... for another day) and Heidi and I, of course, feel as if we share the most blessed marriage in the universe. After spending almost our entire adult life together (since we were 19!), it's difficult to listen to people who say they don't believe in love. Most of our problems lately have been related to things outside of our control; life throwing little obstacles (legal stuff, job stuff, financial stuff) that you've got to work around. Sometimes it's easier than others; sometimes lots of stuff piles on at once.

Heidi and I take a pretty methodical approach to problems. We address them head on, one-by-one, until we work through them, until we feel comfortable where we're at. And that's sort of what we've done. I think we both feel that as long as we have each other, and the kids, and our love, that we'll just sort of work our way through anything.

Just as an aside, that picture above? That's the Greenbelt in Scottsdale – a place where I ride my bike sometimes early in the morning. I love it. It's so peaceful and green, with lots of little ponds and trees. I find peace there.

That's it for today. The blogs should start rolling in again now that I'm settled in at home - gearing up for the fall semester at the paper and the final 15 week stretch of training. There's lots of good things ahead - we've crested the hill, I think ... just gotten by the proverbial Wednesday.

Thanks all for reading and giving and loving. - Ed


You can donate to my cause and the people at Tempe Community Action Agency here. Please make sure to let my know at ebaker@ecollegetimes.com, so the totals reflect how to close to goal we are.