Sierra and Sierra
Week 26: August 25-August 31
Bike: 35 km
Run: 33.5 km
Swim: 5.6 km of open water pain!
Every summer for many, many years, I packed up my bathing suit and head to Lac La Biche for a weekend of swimming, smokies and vicious ping pong games. These summers were spent with the Maccagnos, my pseudo-family, who kept me around (aka didn't drive by when I sat on my front yard with my bag of clothes for the week-end). Summers at the Maccagnos included pig roasts, Pow-Wow parades, poker and the ongoing conversations over the naming of tvarious pets. Every year there would be a new horse, dog, chinchilla, rabbit, crayfish or guppy and every year I would suggest Sierra as a perfectly lovely name. A few days after the new animal's arrival I would get a phone call saying: "Guess what - we named the
Upon meeting Sierra, it became apparent that aside from some fairly minor differences (age, height, vocabulary), we were basically the same person. The first clue of our similarity is the way Sierra II came into the world - Dionne was scheduled to be induced in the afternoon, but Sierra II decided that nobody was going to tell her when she should, or should not, make her debut into the world, so she decided to come out a couple hours early. That is only one of the many shared characteristics between the Sierras, others include: a tendency to get cranky at around 9:00 pm, the need for constant feedings, a preference for being in motion, and a habit of unleashing great rage when being unexpectedly awoken from an afternoon nap.
In addition to those lovely habits, Sierra and I actually share a lot of physical features as well. We both have white round thighs, a big noisy mouth, and a nice round booty (although Sierra II did have the excuse of wearing a diaper, whereas my round ass is pure ice cream and cookies).
Although having a mini-Sierra is a huge honor and generally a pretty wicked thing, I didn't realize the benefits of having a fairly unique name. I spent much of the weekend confused as to why people were talking about my sleeping and urinating habits. It took about a day to stop myself from perking up every time I heard my name.
In addition to meeting Sierra II, I used my weekend at the lake to practice the one Ironman event that I wasn't feeling very confident about - the 3.8 km swim. I decided to try some long-distance lake swimming to see how close/far I was away from being able to complete the first leg of the Ironman. Sierra II's dad Alan, was kind enough to canoe with me and make sure that I wasn't the victim of an errant motorboat, or overzealous Sea-Doo. I had no idea how far the swim would take me, but I knew I wanted to swim to the Island in front of the Cabin. The swim to the Island was pretty good, and took me only about 35 minutes. Unfortunately, what I didn't realize is that the reason it was fairly quick was because of a nice wind pushing me along. The swim back was definitely more challenging and it took me 45 minutes to get back to the cabin. I was happy to see that the swim was 3.75 km, only 50 meters short of the Ironman distance. I'm not sure how ready I was to do 180 km on the bike after finishing, but I am feeling a little more confident about my swimming abilities.
The week-end was capped off with a long run through Lac La Biche, and an important lesson from Tristan, Erin's 4 year old son. Before heading out to my run, Tristan asked if he could join me. I told him he could come along, but I just needed a few minutes to get ready. Tristan watched inquistively while I got all my running gear together, including my: visor, running skirt, running shoes, iPod, and Garmin. After getting geared up Tristan asked me why I needed so much stuff to run - a question I didn't really have an answer to. Then asked if he could just wear what he already had on. I had forgotten in all my running-related purchases that all you really need to run is a pair of shoes...
Sierra posted this on Sep 14, 2008 from the outside | | permanent link
