Parallel Journeys

Sunday, July 23rd looms like a due date. It has been 40 weeks since I took my first step, spin and stroke to train for the Ironman triathlon in Lake Placid – the same amount of time it takes for a woman to grow a baby. Although it is a stretch to compare training to pregnancy, several similarities in my physical and emotional journeys are striking. Over three years ago, becoming pregnant with Austin and Carson was a beginning of a dramatic change in lifestyle, attentiveness to health, gaining of new knowledge and - most importantly – a lifelong commitment to other beings.

So it has been with training. Over the last nine months, a daily workout has required creative scheduling – balancing my job as mom and swimming 154,000 meters, riding 2,200 miles and running 500 miles. Four hundred hours of exercise meant someone else (mainly dad) was watching the children (unless I saddled the indoor trainer or stole away to the backyard pond during naps).

This time around, pre-natal doctor visits were replaced with chiropractor adjustments and massages. My body changed as it built muscle, where before it built belly. Both times, my husband had to fight hard for his share of dessert and I shunned processed foods that wouldn’t benefit babies or recovery. My personal library grew from books titled, “What to Expect When Expecting” to “Going Long,” and late night I could be found online researching the perfect running shoe instead of the perfect nursing pillow.

And the hypnosis birthing classes where I practiced visualizations, deep breathing and scanning the body for tension and letting it go? I just did that two weeks ago during a triple brick lasting six hours.

In a few days – with bags packed and armed with a race plan - I’ll drive to Lake Placid. I’ll be crazy nervous as I wade into Mirror Lake at 5 minutes to 7:00 on Sunday morning. But I’ll be ready. I’ll have plenty to think about over the 140 miles I’ll travel to reach the finish line. And I won’t be alone. Friends and family will be providing encouragement from the lakeshore and roadsides. Over thirty fellow athletes from Team in Training and the Green Mountain Multi-Sport Club will be sharing the experience. I’ll be inspired by the 130 people who donated over $15,000 to my fundraising effort to support the research, education and patient services of The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. And I’ll remember two courageous women, Maggie Ryan and Denise Dolan, who lost their lives to cancer.

After more than twelve hours - when Carson and Austin put their small hands in mine to cross the finish tape and I hear the signature words, “Kelly Ault, you are an Iron(wo)man” - it will be an end as well as a beginning. I’ll take time to celebrate – a few weeks on a wilderness lake in the Adirondacks with family should provide enough peaceful sunsets and hammock naps to feel renewed. Because, when fall rolls around, it will be time to start over. I’ll be ready for a lifestyle of different horizons, involving writing deadlines and first days of pre-school. And, of course, maybe a short-distance triathlon or two….