Wings to Fly

2 years ago when we came out to Utah for XTERRA Trail Run Nationals, we watched our friends compete in the USA Triathlon Championship race the day before. I remember saying that there is no way I could ever do that, yet 2 years later, I found myself standing on the shores of that same reservoir, shivering from head to toe as the air temperature barely reached 40 degrees. I wasn't fearful of the course, the competition, or even the mass start of men and women combined during the swim, but the cold... well, that scared the beegeebezies out of me. The water felt warm compared to the air temperature which actually made me want to do a long warm-up swim and not get out of the water until the very last minute (which is crazy for non-swimming loving me). I gave Dave a quick kiss just as the start gun went off and we dove in with hundreds of our newest XTERRA triathlete friends. It was an elbow punching, kicking, mass of arms and legs for almost the entire first loop of the 2 loop sw

The McCurdy's at XTERRA Mountain Championships Beaver Creek, CO 2015 Okay, so I rambled away in the previous post, setting the stage for a complete downfall in the XTERRA Mountain Championships in Beaver Creek. I babbled on and on about all the reasons (or excuses) of why the race wouldn't go well for me. Last year, however, I really worked on training my brain to be logical when it came to racing and prerace fears rather than paying attention to the screaming chimp (thank Simon Marshall for that depiction) inside my head that sends all the buzzers off, calling "May Day, May Day, you are sinking, you are drowning, you are going to die!!! What were you thinking signing up for this? You are totally out of your league, girlfriend. Abort, Abort! Go home NOW." Two things I learned last year during my Ironman training... 1. You really can silence your inner chimp, face those fears, and come out victorious on the other end.  2. Being a mom of a child with special need

I sat in the doctor's office last Wednesday with an overwhelming feeling of anxiety, on the verge of tears, waiting for the doctor to come in. When she entered, she smiled and asked me to tell her a little about myself. I started sharing my symptoms: overwhelming fatigue, sleepless nights for months, a shoulder injury, chronic hip/hamstring issues, anxious heart palpations, heartburn, indigestion, and the feeling like life is never going to get easier and each day is an uphill, lonely climb. She then asked me what had been going on in my life over the past few months leading up to this visit. Let's see... raising money for our charity and racing in my first Ironman triathlon, a move across the country, a new job for my husband where instead of having the flexibility of working from home, helping with the kids, and making his own hours, he is now working for a large company, punching a clock and working very structured hours, new schools, chronic injuries which haven't all