The race

So Joanna said to me yesterday, "When I was 8, did you ever imagine me here?"  The answer was an immediate and resounding "NO!!".

'Here', of course, referred to competing at the World Triathlon Championships.  Back in Grade 3, she was an awkward, math-brainy, socially shy, bad-toothed kid with no interest in athletics and seemingly no aptitude, except for swimming.  We insisted on the latter just for safety, and she had always been a fish, having learned  to swim (although ungracefully) in the spring before she turned 3.

The teeth were straightened through a long and painful orthodontic process.  We discovered that the awkwardness was due in part to one eye being near sighted and the other far sighted.  Glasses and then lasers corrected that.  In high school, she joined the band and found a good social group in music.  She also met her BFF, with whom she shares a birthday, who was her Maid of Honour, and who is still her confidant.  The "math-brainy-ness" continued and steered her into engineering where she happily works today.

Part way through University, a group doing a relay triathlon in Deep River asked her to do their swim leg and that hooked her.  She decided that doing the whole race -- swim, bike, run -- would be interesting and so it started.  She remarked today that she had been doing triathlons now for 20 years -- half her life.  I guess that makes it a passion, but it also makes her good.  She trains year round, usually getting up at 5 to get in the workout before the family life begins.  If it is not a dessert day, you can't tempt her even with the most luscious chocolate concoctions.  And it brings her to this--competing in her age group at the World level in Lausanne Switzerland.  

On a hard, hilly course, she was 13th on her age group, first among the Canadian women 40 - 44 years old.  

No, my darling daughter, there is no way I ever imagined that when you were 8.  Feeling so blessed that I get to share it.