Danskin 2007

I signed up for the 2007 Danskin Triathlon back in February of this year! So this past weekend has been long awaited and at moments, a dreaded day. From my poor sportsman-like conduct from last year (when I ditched my friend Sarah once I jumped on my bike), I knew I would be competing in this race alone.

As Sunday, August 19th rolled around, I believe Mother Nature woke up on the wrong side of the bed as she decided to put myself and the other 3,495 Danskin participants to the ultimate test with endless amounts of rain, cold, waves and puddles. It definitely did not compare to the 70 degree weather from the year prior.

I knew in my heart that the pain I would endure during this race could never amount to the pain all women battling breast cancer would experience through their treatment. So when moments got tough, I repeated my mantra of "the pain is only temporary" to keep me focused and moving forward.

The swim has always been a challenge for me. Granted I would love to do the freestyle through the entire race, I find myself most comfortable doing the breast stroke. Yes I get passed and yes my arms hurt like crazy, but I get through the swim and then move on to two sports I know best, biking and running.

Biking was insane! I found myself and all other riders being gusted back and forth by the powerful winds over the I-90 bridge. As much as I dislike seeing people get hurt, the bridge was not the place to be and women were tossed about keeping the medic teams very busy!

Running was like a peace of mind. The feeling of ground under my feet, Snoop Dogg blasting in my shuffle and the long breaths of relaxation were pure heaven! The running went by way too quickly.

Here is statistics on how I did at the 2007 Danskin Triathlon:
Overall Rank 197 of 3496
Class Rank 20 of 183
Swim 15:26
Bike 40:36
Bike MPH 18.3
Run 23:52
Run Pace 7:42
Final 1:27:04

I knocked off 9:23 from my 2006 time!
I placed in the top 10% of my age group!
I placed in the top 6% of the entire race!

The biggest thanks goes out to Shawn. Not only did he come to support me, but he got up at 6:25am and then stood in the rain for over 3 hours until I finished!

The Dresser and The Bathroom

College. Ahhh yes, the best 4 years of my life. It was a time of freedom, parent-less experiences, love, drinking, travels, learning from mistakes, responsibility and making friends.

Upon leaving my parents nest, I made up my mind that I was in no way going to join a sorority once I got to college. There was just no way! I was not going to be one of those lame girls who "buys" friends, I certainly was not going to live with 100 girls and I definitely was not going to be stereotyped as a sorority girl. It was so not my style.

So without hesitation, I joined Kappa Delta sorority my freshman year. It was conveniently situated in the middle of "Frat Row" and better yet across the street from one of the biggest fraternities on campus, Sigma Chi.

I did not waste anytime "getting to know" my neighbors and instantly found a dreamy Sigma Chi boyfriend. We dated for a couple years. We were drawn to each other mainly out of lust but also for our love to party. Both of us partied and partied hard.

After one of Sigma Chi's biggest events of the year, Derby Days, I knew it was going to be a rough night and I might have to become friends with some porcelain. I was right, because in the middle of the night, I was woken up by this overwhelming feeling of fire quickly traveling up my throat and into my mouth. I leaped quickly out of his room and ran to the bathroom to rid myself of the fire.

Upon my return, I noticed that my boyfriend was awake and standing by his dresser.

I thought to myself, what is he doing and why was he being really creepy? As I examined the situation closer, he was not just standing there, he was not being creepy, he was actually doing something that I had never seen before. He was relieving himself all over his dresser and clothes drenching everything within a 6" radius. It was unbelievable! I shook him in attempt to wake him from his sleep walk but nothing worked. So I threw my hands in the air and went back to bed.

The next morning, I reenacted the event for my boyfriend to help explain why his clothing was soaked and smelled terrible.

Needless to say, he spent a lot of time the doing laundry that day.

Co-Workers and Jobs

Just when I think I have seen or heard it all from my co-workers, I am proven wrong. To be honest, I am long overdue for one of these "special" moments so in my mind it was bound to happen. Here's the story:

My desk is situated in one of those really creative environments called the gray cubicle. It is divided into four sections, which means I have three neighbors. Currently I have two, the third is starting on Monday and he is a whole different story.

Back to my story. One of my cubmates has a 4 year old black lab dog named Walter.

This morning, the mail was delivered to all of our desks and Perry exclaims "Ohh yeah, it finally came!" So I halted all work to see what he got in the mail. As he opened the box, I started brainstorming about the goods inside. Maybe some cool new shoes or clothes, better yet some protein powder (we are exercise/health fanatics in my cubicle world). Oh no, he pulled out a guide dog harness. Yes the leather harness with puffs of soft fleece to protect the dogs skin and complete with the leather handle/guide.

I looked at Perry with my "WTF" face. He looked up at me and said, "I am tired of tying Walter up outside of stores so I bought the harness so Walter can shop with me."

Yes, this is a true story. Yes, these are people I work with.

The Bionator

I remember going to the Orthodontists office at the age of 5 (Kindergarten) for my initial evaluation. I was introduced to this medicinal smelling man who really liked to stuff his rubber gloves in my mouth a tell me to open and close to what seemed like over 100 times. Let me tell you, that gets old.

After the initial evaluation, my parents were presented with 2 options to fix my severe under bite. #1 - break my jaw and reset it into place or #2 - start with the bionator and then head into braces.

My parents chose option #2 - start with the bionator and then head into braces.

Personally, I was happy with this choice because hearing the words "break" when referencing my jaw was a little scary especially at the age of 5. And to my parents credit, I think they picked the route of less initial trauma.

My next appointment moldings were made and I got to pick a color for my new best friend the bionator. I picked the color pink with silver metallic stars scattered about. A true princess from the begining.

At the following appointment about 2 weeks later, my bionator was presented to me. I was imagining opening this purple box and seeing something petite, dainty and pretty with silver metallic stars. To my surprise, this is what I saw when I opened the box:

It was not petite! Iit was certainly not dainty! For pete's sake it was not pretty! This thing was a monster!

The orthodontist told me to open wide and stuffed this huge piece of metal and plastic into my mouth and told me to close. To better explain the bionator, I am going to compare it to a retainer. When you think about a retainer, it only sticks to the top or bottom of your mouth. The bionator, is one thick piece of plastic that holds both your top and bottom teeth into place, together. There is no opening and closing. When you want to eat you have to take it out. When you want to talk you have to talk with your teeth closed and suck saliva back in between sentences. When you want to just be, you have to check your chin and lips to be sure you are not drooling, sometimes a little would sneak out.

As you can imagine, when you are in Kindergarten, most kids only care about the playground, eating sand and coloring. For me, my cares were eating the Elmer's glue paste with a stick, talking and coloring. Since I could not eat or talk with my bionater, I began to dispise it. This ugly piece of plastic was ruining my life.

The bionator was just the begining.

My Inspiration

This past weekend I headed down to the Napa Valley with Seattle and Portland friends. During one of our midnight drunk fire pit chats, I found myself in the midst of telling a tale from my childhood and someone blurted out "Jenn you should write a book, your stories are hilarious!" To which I thought to myself about my past blogging days "Life as a Siwiec" and decided not to write a book, but to get some of these stories down on this blog. I dedicate this to all of you. Please laugh, love and read! Enjoy.

Team Napa