Chickleta - My SBRing and other Adventures

4:30 am, Sunday May 17, 2015, my alarm beeps.  Time to get up, its race day. The first thought that crosses my mind was - why did I signed up for this? It's so early in the season, after a hard winter. My head keeps going, I can count the number of outdoors rides I've done so far this year on one hand. My stomach is turning, those butterfly again, they started on Friday when we arrived to Chattanooga and now on race morning they are becoming even stronger. I get out of bed and head down to the lobby, I need coffee and then I try to eat my usual pre race breakfast (apple sauce with protein powder and rice cake with almond butter and half a banana). This morning getting the breakfast in is harder than usual. Those damn butterflies, why can't I relax? Why di d I sign for this? still rings in my ears and kept ringing until I was on the dock to jump in the water, but before we get into this, let's go back to the days leading to the race. The Days Before the Race

My Swimming Toys I am not a swimmer and never was.  My dad though me how to swim when I was little, and the most I did with this "knowledge" was to swim for a few minutes to cool myself from the Israeli summer sun, while lying on the beach or poolside.  I don't even remember how I learned how to swim free style and when; so when, in my mid 30s, I decided to sign up for my first triathlon I needed to start somewhere. I joined a triathlon team back in NYC (Terrier Tri) and started going to their beginner swim class once a week.  The workouts were late at night, after work and in a small 20 yard pool, not appealing at all. I came up with any possible excuse not to go. My first ever open water swim, during my first triathlon, did not contribute to my "love" of swimming. I will never forget the moment when I put my head in the 58F water of the Long Island Sound on memorial day weekend back in 2008. All I could see was blackness, my breath was taken away from

My teammates and me at the start line Last August I took part, along with some other VQ teammates in a unique gravel event called Rebecca's Private Idaho. I was asked to write a story about the ride for an Israeli on-line cycling magazine called  bikepanel . Flattered but a little worried (as it's been years since I wrote something in Hebrew that is longer than one sentence), I accepted (with the help of my friend Nimi editing and reviewing my Hebrew). Although it took me what seemed like forever to write, I enjoyed writing the article so much that I accepted the invitation to become a permanent panelist for the magazine. I also decided to translate my article to English (with some minor changes) and have that be my post about the event. I will skip the introduction to the article about myself (mostly written by Nimi) and head right to the article.  I am using the same photos that were used in the article.  The event photographer, Linda Guerrette, gave me permission to use