Dear Diary

I have been more diligent with this diary than I have been with any other diary in my entire life. However, I did not write my secret, most exciting deep and dark secrets. Nope, I wrote what I did to train every single day that I did. Definitely not exciting but, here's why:

6 days a week for the past 9 months, I've been following a training schedule. I knew when I started that I had a pretty big task at hand. Showing up on race day is easy, but preparing your mind and body for the race is not easy. At all. I knew that I needed something to hold me accountable to my trainining and track my progress. The simple act of knowing that I got to go home and record my miles gave me reassurance that I was doing everything in my power to prepare myself for this Ironman.

So that's what I did! I recorded everyday whether I swam, biked, and/or ran. I also recorded the time and distance of each. The diary also has spots for nutrition, energy, etc. but I didn't fill that out usually. However, one day I did calculate how much nutrition I needed to sustain my bike and run that day. Over the course of an entire day (breakfast, fuel during training, and dinner) I ate 5,000 calories! Kind of crazy.

Anyways, so here is where I am currently:

215 miles of swimming

3,395 miles of biking

718 miles of running

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And only 2 weeks until race day. As in, in 2 weeks I will be currently on that race course. Praise the Lord! This year has been quite the year. It's been fun training (well sometimes), but at the same time it has been lots and lots of sacrifice. Many times when I would have much rather gone to spend time with my family, fiance or friends, I had to train. Sometimes in the cold rain, ha. I knew God called me into this Ironman for a reason, and I've given my all to prepare myself for the race and to raise money for the work coming out of UVP. My prayer is that my sacrifices and hard work will be worth it come June 27th! It's been quite the journey experiencing God sustaining me through this and I can't wait to cross that finish line.

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Also, in one HUGE way, my sacrifices are already are worth it and I haven't even raced. There is still 2 weeks left to go, and I am continually humbled by the funds donated to UVP. Currently about $5,500 has been raised. THANK YOU to all of you who have donated! I can't tell how how joyful my heart is to think that what is being done here is going to impact many people in a BIG way across the world in Uganda. Wells with clean water, safe water education, sustainable nutrition education/initiatives, obstetric fistula education and surgeries... the list goes on. I love the power of a group of people coming together behind one great cause. Sincerely, thanks to all have supported Uganda Village Project!