Why do you do ANYTHING?? Sometimes it seems as we become grown ups our motivation is to do things because we HAVE to....but thankfully there are opportunities for the opposite to happen.
If you've done a Mermaid event, hopefully you've caught onto the fever that this for every BODY, every AGE, every ABILITY....no two Mermaids are alike and that includes our stories.
There are many reasons to be motivated to move our bodies, to get outside, to run away from it all, to try and catch the guy in front of us. We are hoping that you will share your story with us as we each have a story, some a little messy, some a little sad, some filled with joy at the idea that we can even move our bodies at all. We need to hear each other's story because in it being told, someone's life might change. A triathlon, duathlon, bike ride, swim or run with friends might seem a silly launching point for a good story to be told from outside looking in, but I think you know as well as I do that there isn't anything trite about getting out there, shattering boundaries that we have set for ourselves, taking risks that we never thought we would. When someone hears your story, yours alone, it might just be what they need to launch, to change to grow, to run, to swim, to ride....
It's so hard to share a part of ourselves that is ours alone....I wanted to encourage you in your story telling....it's in the telling sometimes that new levels of motivation come. It's also in the telling of your story that someone else's life has the potential to change. I am quite sure that there will be someone that you know who is unsure..that is waiting, needing, looking for inspiration for a reason to try this thing called a triathlon. Or they maybe ready but very scared to go to the next level in sport ...something is holding them back and your story will unwrap that for them and give them the courage to try.
It is scary to tell our stories because all of a sudden we become vulnerable to people's interpretation of us ...maybe it's not the one we want them to have and in the releasing of ourselves they now have permission to paint a picture of us that we don't have control over. Know that in the end your reason for sharing is to inspire, to use your journey to bring about something new and exciting...
I can't encourage you to do it if I don't do it myself....
In September 2001, much to my surprise I was diagnosed with a blood cancer called MDS. It was a shock at 31, loving life, raising two incredible boys to go from running full speed to barely making it out of my car. The disease came on fast and furious, the only cure, a bone marrow transplant. After months of searching and finding my only sibling wasn't a match, no donor was found.
Even though there was still no cure, the following Spring in 2002, I stood at the finish line at Wildflower while my friends, people I love dearly raced in my honor through Team in Training. TNT raises money for research for blood cancers like mine, they support families and give encouragement for the one diagnosed and all those that love them. I remember watching each of my friends come across that line in the heat, with my name on their back and I could not contain my emotion. Who was this person they were racing for? It was hard for me from the moment I got diagnosed to believe I was a sick person ...I was not a fan of the idea. It was overwhelming to say the least to be there, to not know what this life was going to bring, to see my friends struggling so much to complete this crazy thing called a triathlon because of me.
I was able to go to Seattle later that spring and meet a doctor who would save my life. He asked, (knowing we would most likely never find a donor) if I would be interested in doing a drug trial. I said yes and that September, I flew up to Seattle with my very good friend after a tearful goodbye to my kids for a two week adventure. I received the treatment and came home not sure what the future would hold. After months of injections and recovery from the treatment, in late January of 2003, I was given the clearing...MDS wasn't gone but it wasn't hurting me any longer. The treatment had worked, my running shoes went back on my feet.
I would run as far as I could, then I would call my husband and have him come pick me up. I won't lie...in my mind always from the day I laid in the hospital getting the first treatment~I pictured myself at Wildflower ...swimming, riding and running, with a big fat smile on my face and the words "SCREW YOU CANCER" in my head.
I soon started swimming and I would occasionally get on my borrowed mt. bike. My friends and family didn't really like what they saw, they were scared that I was pushing myself too hard, that my body wasn't ready or worse, that the cancer would come back.
I put a call into my doctor up in Seattle (I don't remember if anyone knew that I had signed up for the Mountain Bike course at Wildflower yet ...I was a little worried about the reaction). I needed to know from the source, from the one who REALLY knew if I was being stupid, if I was hurting myself. I explained what I was doing, how I was training, what my plan was. I will never forget his words and I hold them dear to my heart even now. "Heidi", he said "I can guarantee you, if I asked my patients with the same disease when they come back and it has turned into leukemia if they did all that they wanted to, if they pushed themselves and lived life. I am sure that they will say that they didn't do enough. If I end up seeing you 6 months sooner than I would have if the disease progresses because you lived, I will say well done, just take a lot of naps."
I took his words seriously and in May of 2003, I raced for the first time at Wildflower. With flowers in my braids, my son kicking my butt ahead of me I did it. When I came across that finish line with my family there and the same friends who raced in my honor I could not believe it. I could not have imagined actually doing it. I haven't stopped since. I have done all three distances at Wildflower and I love that race.
I will be racing the long course this May at Wildflower for the third time, my motivation, it's the same. I do it because I can, because even though I was diagnosed with a different blood cancer called PNH in June of 2008, I will do it. I will have on my back the words "Cancer sucks" because it does. But even though it sucks, it motivates me to live this life as much as I can. Drinking it in, tasting it, smelling it and loving it with all that I have.
Heidi Boynton
Head Coach Team Mermaid
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