Troy and I went to pick Annie up from camp together today, and on the way home I had Troy drop me at the store to pick up sweet potatoes. I, of course, ended up with 2 full bags of groceries and walked home with them. Widdle Waddle. I'm a horribly slow walker. It drives Troy crazy. I use all my fast during my day's training. So, I walk into my cul-de-sac driveway thing (is that how you spell cul-de-sac?). I live in a tiny group of 8 duplexes...or 4 duplexes I guess, not sure how you "count" them. We are, for the most part, a pretty tight bunch of neighbors. We share a communal driveway, it's not a city road, so we group together to pay for repairs. There are 6 kids (and one on the way, but not from my belly) and all the adults look out for all of the kids.

Okay, so I walk into the cul-de-sac and my neighbor Michael is fixing some sprinklers that he's got in his yard. Usually I would just let him be. I'm a social girl, but for some reason I'm one of the more shy ones on the block. Troy is actually the chatty one and likes to provide the hood with lots of home brew beer. Many bottles have been consumed on the front porch between him and the neighbors. I usually just want to crawl back into my bed, and for me, home is my nest.

Over to Michael I go and ask him what he's doing and he tells me. We chat about it for a second and then I head out and on the way out he says "Do you have any races coming up?" Now the whole block and some of the surrounding blocks know I'm a triathlete and that we go to Kona every year, yada yada yada. So I tell Michael I've got Vegas 70.3 World Championships in September and Kona Ironman World Championships in October. He kinda nods and then he says "Do you think you're going to win a World Championship?"

It kinda stops me in my tracks. I turn around. Now, if you know me, you know that I'm an honest to a fault kind of girl. Lying to this man is not something I'm actually capable of doing. And I say "I don't know Michael, it's hard to keep getting your hopes up year after year and never really get any closer to it, I'll do my best. It's my 4th year headed back to Kona and it's a really hard race. It's hard to come back heart broken year after year. I'll race my best, that's all I can ask."

He said to me "You need to focus more on it, you know what, come here..."

So I walk back over, still with two full bags of groceries in my hands and I stand in front of him.

For ten minutes he gave me the most amazing pep talk I've had. He talked to me about certainty, and expectations. He told me a story about really wishing that Troy would bring him some of his home brew Stout last week, and how he went to the liquor store and the Killians Red Stout was on sale. He bought some, got home and it tasted exactly like Troys Stout. So much that he had to bring Troy a bottle. He said that you have to voice your wants and understand that your energy is powerful enough to bring things to fruition.

He talked to me about jinxing things, and that it doesn't exist. He said he watches me train day in and day out and just knows the only thing between me and my goal is my head. He said when you go to flip your bedroom light switch, you don't wonder if you are good enough for your lamp to turn on. There are things in life that you don't associate the word "deserve" with. It's a choice.

It was all very "power of attraction" kind of stuff, but delivered through my horse riding, wrangler wearing, sprinkler fixing, beer drinking neighbor. It kinda rocked my world and I walked away feeling like it wasn't a coincidence that I needed sweet potatoes this afternoon. I think I needed to run into Michael.

So what do you think? Do you ever get scared of putting BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals) out there? Are you afraid of heart break when you make goals? I know I get that way. Can you all believe that I've been working for 4 years on trying to be a World Champion? Did you ever think it was for any other reason? I get asked often (and when I say often I mean often and with all sorts of various intentions) whether I will turn professional. The answer has always been no, and the reason, in my heart has always been because I want to be an age group world champion.