Live Your Dreams!

Today is the 39th running of the Ironman World Championship. Every year under the first full moon in October the best triathletes in the world gather on the shores of the Big Island at the city of Kailua-Kona. Here an odyssey of 140.6 mile will begin at 6:30 a.m. local standard time. But for each of these athletes the journey began long before they step into the blue of the Pacific, a like journey that for me began no less then a decade earlier.

One year ago I was lucky enough to stand on the pier in Kona about to go into the water to begin what would be for me, an epic journey. Every athlete that day had a story and not one of those stories the same in any way other then the distance of the race itself. But for me my journey to Kona and her start line began in the early spring/late winter of 2006 as Bootsie and I started our official training program for the 2006 addition of the Ford Ironman Coeur d'Alene. Little did I know or could have I ever imagined this would lead to the start line in Kona in the fall of 2016. As I stood there looking out over the start line and the massive crowd beyond, Bootsie by my side, I took a moment. In that moment, that exact instant, I would be moved and changed forever.

Photo by James Richman

"There is nothing in the world like this moment. Thousands in anticipation of what they will do and what they will see. Every athlete is well aware of the magnitude of the moment. They are all prepared physically now it's a mental game."

Today in Kona for over 2400 athletes their lives will change in some manner as they all pursue a dream whatever that dream may be. This event, this spectacle, this inner battle with ones self is just to great not to effect each of them in some way.

At Kailua-Kona the Ironman World Championship and her course will provide challenges for each athlete, be them mental, physical or both. That's what this course provides and that's what makes this course so special. They will want to quit during that long period of time maybe a hundred, maybe a thousand times. But for reasons known only to the athletes themselves, they will keep going, with it in them. These athletes, the athletes that make up the 2017 running of the Ironman World Championship will simply keep going. They will keep going until they reach that finish line, their finish line, be that today in Kona or where ever their dreams may take them.

So I say good luck to each of these athletes. May today be all you ever hoped it would be, all you ever dreamed. Today we watch those lucky enough to have a dream so we can watch as those dreams come true. Live your dreams!

Frozen - And the Likes.

In a lot of ways frozen is a good thing. It helps in the preservation of food sources, it sparks new life by resetting plant growth for spring time and it can assist in recovery. It also makes for a pretty darn cute movie.

So lets talk about it, that word - Frozen. But what we should talk about are the things that I like about frozen.


Pizza - But only when Bootsie is not home or should I say I only have/get frozen pizza when she's not home. I like it best when placed on a pizza stone and cooked in the Traeger. So a paticular type of cooked pizza is what I like I guess. Hmmm... Could that mean I don't like frozen pizza - in the true sense of the word? But what I like is a Tombstone, Digiorno or Titino's brought to temperature, where the cheese has melted to a gooey mess and the pepperoni sizzles as if to call my name. But could this mean I don't like "frozen" pizza at all? I ponder.


Daiquiris - Plural. Raspberry please. But only when in season. Best consumed in the presences of loved ones while perched on the deck at a Priest Lake cabin after a long summer's day of doing next to nothing at all in an effort to hold down the dock as the world passes me by. A time to reflect and enjoy the simplest of things, that although always there, seem to escape my grasp. So maybe it's not the Daiquiris themselves, but maybe I like what they represents in all their frozen wonder.


Popsicles - Who didn't sit under the shade of a backyard evergreen enjoying your favorite flavor or as I knew them, my favorite color. The sticky liquid running down covering my hand to prove it's adhesive power when wiped in the grass and dirt.

Or better yet, running while waving a dime at the beloved Ice Cream Man. His choices endless in the eyes and mind of child.


A Mountain Meadow - I did not grow up engaging in outdoor winter sports other then bombing down a local hill on runner sleds at break neck speeds in an effort to spill other neighborhood kids by grabbing one of their runners from behind and pulling it crosswise. This sending the bundled teen spinning and crashing into what we hoped would be the soft powder lining the majority the chosen city street. Not always the case might I add, the powder that is, the crashes were inevitable. I, a scrawny teen where gravity when applied sent the older heavier sledders down the frozen streets at a much greater speed. But I'm not bitter. Yeah Yeah - I'm getting to the mountain meadow part but first I find it necessary to exercise a few childhood demons.

As I aged I would be introduced to winter mountain sports such as downhill snow skiing. Where a frozen slope is not my favorite by the way, again preferring powder. Winter mountain sports are phenomenal. I have spent many winters carving mountain slopes across the Northwest and Western Canada but when introduced to cross county skiing this is where I found serenity.

When cross country skiing in the backwoods and mountains in the Pacific Northwest it is inevitable that you will come upon a frozen meadow as you silently slide your way across the trails of a mountainside. It is here that I like to stop, to enjoy the beauty the good Lord provides and to sit in silences as nature plays out in front of me. Maybe a distant bird, deer or in this area, a moose are the only others enjoying the beauty. Them, not knowing they are part of the beauty. Me, the one granted the opportunity to share.


Panties - Yes that's right - panties - frozen. But only after an entire drawer of panties have been placed in the sink, for moisture, then carefully arranged in a colorful bouquet on the windshield of the owners car in the dead of night one mid January in a winter of my college years. Oh she earned it. And yes we showed early the next morning to watch. After readying herself for classes early that Monday morning, she would first curse when she saw it, our Michelangelo in frozen panties, but she then laughed as she knew the anticipation of what was to come was now over. She had been the ring leader in a lake cabin prank earlier that summer. I had chosen to wait for my revenge knowing the anticipation of something, anything, would be greater then the act itself. We stood watching as the owner of the car, a rainbow of panties frozen to her windshield, putting her defroster to the test as the entire apartment complex of college students now on their way to classes streamed past only to wonder. A crescendo of defrosted panties hitting the pavement as she carefully peeled from the windshield. Revenge was mine.


So - Frozen - I would imagine I will be back with things that I don't like - that are frozen.