I have my sprint distance Triathlon on Sunday. I’d like to say it is my first but I did this event in 2000 and hated it with every fiber in my body. I was totally unprepared and horribly undertrained. I’m expecting this one to go a lot better. Getting there is not so easy, though.

My little Pookie (the youngest of my three children) moves out of the house to take up residence in a college dorm on Saturday. She is both excited and terrified. We are very, very close and she will be living far away and that makes her nervous. She had a great kayaking trip to Baja and made friends so there is no fear of not knowning anyone. She has several friends from high school who will also be there. No – that’s not it. It’s just the natural fear of jumping off a cliff into the water. You know you can swim, you’ve seen everyone else come back to the surface laughing, you’re pretty sure the water is a good temperature and as far as you know there aren’t any rocks lurking just under the surface. But still – it’s scary. What if something bad happens? Her lifeline will be 800 miles away.

To make this situation just a little more frightening my company is having a mandatory all hands meeting. Dinner Thursday night and team building all day Friday. The edict was no one leaves before 4:30 PM on Friday. That meant that I had to book a 7:30 flight and wouldn’t get home until 10:00. I was towing the line until yesterday when I jokingly chided Pookie for the long face and the inactivity and she burst into tears. Sometimes you just need a slap in the face to see the light.

I changed my flight on Friday – I’m leaving at 1:10. I called my boss and told him. I didn’t ask him – I told him. He’s a good guy and he understands so it’s okay.

So now I will leave today, be away all day Thursday and half of Friday, spend Friday helping her finish her preparations, spend Saturday flying to San Diego and back and then….. somehow get ready to leave very early Sunday for my event .

It’s a really good thing the folks from Accel sent me some gels to test. They came today. That’s one thing off my list! The rest will just have to fall into place. Of course I totally faked this event 5 years ago and lived to tell the tale so no worries about using a new nutritional product, right?

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Post Script –
Remember the one about the world’s most expensive pancakes? They also turned out to be the world’s most delicious pancakes (second item). And here they are:

Their worth might not be obvious but that’s because you didn’t see the kids all sleeping in their sleeping bags out on the campus grounds

And you didn’t get to hear the tale of how they helped SpongeBob find his house that had been stolen by the Coyote

Pookie giving a flawless, off the cuff account of her group’s adventure

And you didn’t get to see your baby smiling with her group of new friends. That alone, was worth the price of admission.