The Norseman Video for 2105 that the race puts on has come out. I'm in it, at the beginning talking, and then also at the end crying with Andrew.

I knew I wanted to write one final post on Norseman, but man, I knew it was going to hurt. Maybe not so much for you, but definitely for me.

Before I get into that, some gratitude is in order. My sponsors this year have been terrific. Liz and James at Tribella helped me out in such a huge way for this race. James completely overhauled my bike, changing out both cassettes, installing lights, and dealing with new wheel sets, only to change everything back a few weeks after the race. It was a huge amount of work. Also, not a sponsor, but equally as helpful was Mo Zornes. Coeur is still in process for developing true blue cold weather gear but Hincapie has a full line and Mo got me set up with a full set of cold weather gear, and sublimated Coeur logos everywhere so I could rep my beautiful sponsor with my printed t-shirts. Thank you Mo with Hincapie! QR got me a bigger size frame this year which I am so very thankful for! Osmo and Honey Stinger have made nutrition decisions second nature and my gut is happy. Who can ask for more? And lastly, I need to thank YAY, for reminding me constantly why I am in this sport....unbridled enthusiasm!

My deepest gratitude goes to my husband Troy, daughter Annie, and my good friends Laura and Andrew. They really made this race happen for me. I wouldn't have a black shirt without all four of them and I am deeply grateful for that black shirt. My whole team deserves that shirt. Also a huge thank you to Muddy and to Andrea who have been there for me this year like no other.

Okay, the nitty gritty. Lets do this.

People who wade into discomfort and vulnerability and tell the truth about their stories are the real badasses"

-- Brene Brown (Rising Strong)

Reading this quote this morning is what made me put my book down, turn on my computer, and begin to crank this post out. It's been rolling around in my head without the guts to get it out. Hopefully I've inserted enough cute pictures...my go to when talking about stuff that scares me.

A few things have been going on in my life the last 9 months. I've been in the trenches of life. I've lost relationships this last year, and it F*&$%ing hurts every day. I'm an outgoing social girl by nature, and I care deeply for the health and happiness of those around me. The loss of close relationships has beaten the shit out of me.

And over this year as I tried to work through the changes, I also started Rising Tide Triathlon Coaching. I'm sure it comes as no surprise to know that I love coaching others in the sport. I wanted to use this down year in sport to build a new business, with a new framework, and to move beyond one on one coaching the 12 athletes I have stuck to for the past few years. I needed to bring on help, lots of help, and Audra, Andrea, Mikki, Mo, and KDO, etc have really risen to the occasion, I thank them daily!

When I look back on the last 9 months, I feel like I have done zero work, and boatloads of work, all at once. I feel like I have little to show, and yet, I know the invisible structures that needed to be built are there. A strong business has a strong foundation, and I've worked hard on that this year so that rolling out flashy products over the next few months is now becoming possible. Yay.

As I was building my biz, I was training for this big Norwegian race and I was at odds with myself. I could not for the life of me figure out how to find balance between training and working my business, something I ask every single one of my athletes to do on a daily basis. I could not live what I preached and I was really down on myself over that fact. In recent weeks I have started to see some success on this front, after having tried about 5 different daily plans. I must say, to those of you with family, full time jobs, or your own businesses, and triathlon lifestyles, I am deeply bowing down to you....deep bow.

Through this time period, everyone was asking me what I was training for and I found myself telling them about Norseman, how hard it was, how much climbing, how cold the water was, etc. I called it the hardest single day Ironman in the world.

As the race got closer and I went to San Jose to train for several weeks, I was a mess. Frankly, I had lost a boatload of fitness, in my mind. Now, coach got me back in a good place for Vineman and I surprised myself there, but I continued to reinforce the feeling that I wasn't fit enough for Norseman. I didn't really even know how much fitness I needed for Norseman, it's not like I had completed the race in the past, but I was still at odds with myself on the fitness front.

So, with that background laid out, here's where the shit gets real.

I found out 10 days after Norseman, when I finally was able to make it to the doctor in the states (try finding a doctor in Norway....impossible...we tried) that I had pneumonia and two sinus infections. Now, I didn't race with the sinus infections, those developed after the race, but I did race Norseman with pneumonia. It took me a month to recover from having done so, and the weeks after the race were pretty rough. I pretty much emotionally lost my marbles in the most gorgeous country in the world.

As I processed what happened, I realized a few pretty shitty things.

One, I spent a lot of time telling people how hard it was going to be. Two, I believed deep in my heart, despite what came out my mouth, that I couldn't compete at the top.

And a quick aside about that. I had this ahh-hah the other day. Whenever you are placed in a situation of vulnerability you always have deeply held beliefs about your capabilities. You know, in the SOUL, what you feel deep down? And often times, what comes out our mouth is different than those deep beliefs. Example: I can feel confident in my soul and then chose to say "I feel confident" or I can oppose that confidence and do some posturing like "Oh, we'll see how it goes, it might be ugly." Right? So sometimes our soul is in alignment with our mouth, and sometimes they are in opposition. Sometimes we use the mouth to try to convince our soul to believe something different.

I had this going on with Norseman. When people asked me, my words were "I'm going to try to win" but my soul was in the opposite place, it didn't think I could compete at the top with the training I had done (or failed to do).

So my Ahh-hah the other day was that the SOUL ALWAYS WINS and your words can either help it out, or they can simply represent bullshit. Words in misalignment with the soul are bullshit. Sometimes we call it humble, or sandbagging. Really, it's misalignment. The soul doesn't lie, and I'm telling you now, what I deeply believe, is the outcome I seem to get....every darn time.

So, getting back to the main subject here, and the telling of the truth about my story, here's where I got to in the end.

I'm not this badass (or stupid girl as some have told me) who raced Norseman with pneumonia. It's not unfortunate, or bad luck, or the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. It's not something to be commended, or added onto the race with an *.

I got exactly what I believed I deserved. I put into the universe, at a soul level, two things: ONE that it was going to be the hardest single day event of my life, and TWO that I couldn't compete with those at the top. And low and behold the universe gifted me pneumonia which made the race: ONE the hardest single day event of my life, and TWO rendered me unable to compete with the girls at the top.

I flipping upper limited myself with my thoughts, and the way life works, I got exactly what I put out there. I'm not a girl who got pneumonia and raced anyway. I'm a girl who gave herself pneumonia because she was too scared to surrender to what the experience had to offer her.

And you know, getting down to that nitty gritty...sucked.

To realize that I brought that miserable experience on myself, and that if I had only remained open (in my soul) to many different outcomes, and many different possibilities, maybe the race day and experience would have looked very different, well, I kick myself over that one. Opportunity missed.

Going forward, I learned a big lesson here. I take with me the reminder to be very mindful of my deep beliefs. To guard and nurture those beliefs like my life (and my life experiences) depend on it, because they do. It took a really hard and tough experience to net me that nugget of awesomeness, but I won't waste it. It was hard fought for.

And with that huge chunk of vulnerability on a Friday morning...I'm going to go swimming in Lake Tahoe to shake it all off! Peace out friends!