Mette Harrison - Ironmom: Training and Racing with a Family of 7

Copyright 2013 by Mette Harrison

All rights reserved.

Published by Familius LLC, www.familius.com

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Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication Data

2013933819

pISBN: 978-1-938301-36-0 eISBN: 978-1-938301-35-3

Printed in the United States of America

Edited by Michele Robbins Cover design by David Miles Book design by Maggie Wickes

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Edition

Introduction

People who know me now imagine that I have always been athletic, always driven, always interested in racing. This isnt true. When I was a child, my only interest in athletics was in having fun. I enjoyed walking around our big yard in central New Jersey. I enjoyed chasing after our dog and the chickens on the big two-acre lot that my parents had made into a farm. I remember our pony Romeo and how much I loved to ride him.

But at school, it was all different. There, I hated running the mile in PE classes and would do anything I could to avoid the continual sense that I was overweight, slow, and that my body was somehow just made wrong because I was in so much pain. I was convinced that nothing could ever change, that I was always going to be the kid no one wanted on any recess kickball team.

The summer when I was fifteen, I have a distinct memory of going on a rafting trip down the Colorado River with a group of neighbors and a handful of adults who were our supervisors. It rained almost the entire time, a miserable and unusual week in a Utah summer. But on Thursday afternoon, there was a beautiful burst of sunshine. We stopped for lunch on shore and let our clothes dry out for a bit. Then, after the food had settled, we kids started to chase the adults in an impromptu game. We were trying to throw them into the river (to get wet again).

I remember how much fun I had running that afternoon. I remember the sun shining down on me and how glorious it felt. I remember the feeling of my bare feet in the sand as I ran. I wasnt trying to get a gym teacher to give me a decent grade. I didnt care about my time or how my body looked jiggling along the track. I just wanted to be part of a team of kids who were ganging up on the adults and throwing them in the river. And I loved it! I loved the sensation of running with a group, with a purpose. I loved how I felt in my own body; I wasnt being judged. I loved pushing myself as hard as I wanted to push.

Sadly, once we got back in the rafts and headed home, I did not feel that sense of pure pleasure in running for a long time again, or in anything else athletic, really. I worked hard at swim team, but without many results. Anxiety got in my way, that sense of being judged and being found wanting that I think many of us feel, in so many parts of our lives. I grew up and my body started to creak. I went to doctors who told me to do less and less. I stopped walking and started to dread the stairs. I gained weight with each baby, and it did not come back off.

And then one day, I fought back against all that. I found a doctor who was interested in helping me get back to what I used to do, who I used to beif only for that one afternoon. I wanted to be again the person who was comfortable in her body and who loved to move. So I signed up for a marathon where it wasnt about finishing in a certain time. There was no prize to be won as far as I could see. It was just about me and the distance, me doing something that I had thought so impossible I had never even considered putting it on a list of goals. I finished that race, and then I signed up for others. I completed them, and then I did more than complete them. I triumphed over them.

There are still days when it rains in the raft, when I just huddle under a tarp and wish that the day was over. But there are more and more days in my life when I get out and find sunshine, either outside or in my own exercise room. I chase down my own demons or I simply let myself go back to that one moment as a teenager when I felt good about my body, when I pushed myself because I wanted to push myself.

At my most recent race, Race in Las Vegas April 20, 2013, I forgot my watch. I did the entire race without any idea of what my time was. It wasnt my best race. I ended up with a flat tire and that was frustrating. But not having a watch made it so that I really had no idea how much time I was losing. And that was a great thing. Instead of the race being about a time, it was once again about me and my body, me facing a challenge. A challenge that I choose for myself, and that only I judged the results of.

The best races are a chance for me to be once again the teenage girl who realized that running didnt always have to be about not being good enough. The best races arent about feeling fat or awkward or in the wrong shoes because I couldnt afford better ones. They are about me doing what I want to do, making myself do something that would have seemed impossible if anyone else had asked me to do it. But since I am doing it for me, I cant rebel and most importantly of all, I cant fail. I can only find out who I am, and that is the person who always turns out to be surprised at what she can do.

In triathlon, I have also learned things about other people that I will never forget. People who stop and help other racers when they dont have to, simply because they like to help. People who go on with incredible injuries to finish races simply because they wont give up. People who cheer me on after I have passed them because they feel the spirit of togetherness in a race.

Triathlon is one of the kindest communities in the world. I have never been to a race where people did not want to help each other out in some way. A flat by the side of the road elicits offers of a tube or air. People who get injured and cant race come and volunteer at aid stations or just cheer along the way. And when the last person crosses the finish line, whether bleeding, or in his seventies, or sixty pounds overweight, we all cheer because we are all racing the same race, against ourselves, not each other.

Come join my community. Come read about my adventure to come to where I am today. Its not an endeavor for the faint of heart, but it is for anyone who is willing to give back one hundred percent. I have found happiness, peace, and not a small part of my best self herein the water, on the bike, out running hills. Thats why I wrote this book. Whenever I talked about it, people would shake their heads and tell me that I sounded passionate, that I almost made them believe they could do it. And you can do it! Any of you can!

Chapter 1

Why Tri?

I signed up for Ironman Coeur dAlene on September 5, 2005, one week after I delivered my sixth child, Mary Mercystill born. I had tried a triathlon briefly in 2004, and had kept in shape during the pregnancy, mostly by swimming. I had intended to do an Ironman one day in a sort of mystical far off future, after this last baby was born. But I discovered I desperately needed to do it as part of my recovery from grief. Maybe this makes no sense, adding something else to an already busy life with five other children and grief to deal with as well, but I needed focus and purposeand training for an Ironman twenty or more hours a week certainly gives you that.