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As I’m sure most of you guys have gathered – Kelly is an Ironman. The weather was chilly the whole day making it ideal racing conditions – I think the high may have reached the upper 50′s. It was a great course for spectators. Every part of the race had 2 loops so we were able to see her mid-swim and post swim (she was super fast in the water, getting out before most of the competitors). Then we raced over to the ‘bike-out’ and cheered her on for her 112 mile journey. The bike was fun for us because the way the course was set up we could see her about 3-4 times per loop – thus, I think we were able to hold our signs up and cheer her on about 8 times during the ride. And would you believe that she was smiling every time we saw her? She would be smiling and waving, or blowing us kisses, or giving us the thumbs up (not the disposition as to be expected after doing so much to your body). During the second loop of the bike the sky got a little grey and the wind picked up. Then just about when she started her marathon the rain came. Kelly likes to run in the rain so it was great for her – and luckily we found a bar with a patio overlooking the run course – so it was still cold but at least we had shelter from the rain. Again, the course was nice because we got to see her go out and back on each loop (4 spottings total, with the final one being at the finish line). I jogged along the sidewalk as Kelly passed once – I was clearly concerned and making sure she was still doing alright and still eating and drinking enough (they say you burn 10,000 calories during an ironman). This was as she was heading out on her last loop of the run. She still looked incredibly strong and when I asked her how she was doing she said “I’m doing really great, I feel good, I’m going to come in under 13 hours…” Ay Carumba is what I thought – that would be insane, but she was right, she was definitely on pace to do such. I then proceeded with asking if she had eaten enough and if she had considered drinking coke yet. Coke is offered along the race and its a tricky beast – it’s got caffeine and lots of sugar which are two great things for a racer – but it’s one of those things that once you start drinking it you have to continue doing so for the rest of the race or else you will crash/bonk. Ha! she let me know that she had indeed just drank a bit of coke and in her words “IT’S LIKE SPEED!!!”
The next time we saw kelly she was in the homestretch. She was heading down the main street of Coeur d’Alene that was lined with spectators cheering their loudest. It’s pretty cool because the race numbers have the racers name on it – so everyone for the last 0.2 miles was cheering Kelly on by name. In fact they were so loud that she couldn’t even hear us above the noise. As Kelly crossed the finish line the announcer came on and said “Kelly Preddy you ARE an IRONMAN, in fact, this is Kelly’s first Ironman, she is an Iron Princess.” It was all pretty overwhelming actually. And she did finish before 13 hours – a feat by anyones standards.
Kelly’s body was still incredibly wired after the race so she didn’t sleep very much, but we still had our priorities to go to the finisher’s store at 6:45am. The finisher’s store opened at 7am and it has all the clothing and garb that had “IRONMAN FINISHER” on it. We were able to grab a jacket, a sweatshirt, a shirt, and some stickers before the crowds and cleaned the place out. Later on in the day we also went to the photo place and bought all the professional photos taken of Kelly throughout the race – they were all great pictures of Kelly smiling, looking strong, and with great Idaho scenery in the background.
Let us also mention that we made it to the tattoo parlor where Kelly got the m-dot brand on her foot. It’s on the inside of her left heel and is pretty small. It’s a black outline of the m-dot and all the other ironmen in the parlor were big fans of the tat.
So the big question: is Kelly going to do another Ironman?….
Welp, as of right now I think she has decided to just do this one. She has said that this experience was so perfect that another would never compare. She felt so great, finished so fast, and had a lot of support – an equation that might not always be the same if she did more.
For those of you Team Preddy-ers out there. Oh, let me digress, I won’t be long. The whole family went out to eat the other night. Mom wanted to know what you call a person from Idaho. She kindly asked the waitress:
mom: so you’re from Idaho right?
waitress: Sure am.
mom: so what do they call you?…. (pause)
do they call you Ida -Ho (pause whole family gets a little nervous) – ans?
yeah, Idahoans?
waitress: yeah, that sounds about right (as the whole family wipes the sweat off our brows thinkings she was going to leave it at just Ida-HOS or take it one step further with Ida-Ho-Ers — seriously say it outloud, say it with a slight southern drawl — does not sound appropriate.
Anyways. For all you Team Preddy-ans out there, I want to let you know that you can actually track kelly along her race. All you have to do is go to www.ironman.com and go to the ‘live coverage.’ Then you can type in her name or her race number which is 2080. This live coverage should allow you to see her times as she passes various checkpoints, and there’s also a live video feed of the finish line that you can watch her strut across.
The race is tomorrow and Kelly is all prepped up and ready. She’s got all her race and special bags packed and ready to be dropped off in just a short while….
Putting the final touches on the gear, equipment, and nutrition
Well the whole clan has made it to Idaho. After a few disagreements with hotels.com, a minor delay on US Airways, and a few drinks in Portland (enjoyed my Mom and Dad) we all got to CDA. It is definitely gorgeous out here. The weather according to the locals is AMAZING and on the verge of hot…. to us it feels a bit chilly. The temperature is perfect for racing. The only downside is there is a chance of rain for tomorrow… eh, you can’t win the weather battle all the time.
We have gotten to enjoy a little time in Ironman village where you can shop for gear to your hearts content, make inspirational signs, sample some grub, and meet all the other crazy (I mean focused) triathletes.
Kelly has still been plugging away at her training…. nothing too intense (it is her taper afterall). She’s suited up in her wetsuit the past two morning to swim the cold waters of the lake. She’s taken her bike for a cruise, and I even got to join her on a jog this morning. We went downtown and I left her at the water and went yooogging around town….. we met back up and she changed into some running clothes and we finished up on a run together. I think we are still on Texas time because we woke up, made breakfast, did all that above, and were back home by 10.
Besides the Ironman, there was another adventure that we enjoyed (well, the jury is still out if I enjoyed it or not). And by ‘we’ I’m talking about Scott, Dad and I. Dad/Bob is a big fan of rails-to-trails. It’s a great effort across the nation (who knows, maybe international) where old rail lines are turned into bike paths. It makes sense – most of the work is already done – it’s smooth trail that goes EVERYWHERE — all you have to do is rip out the rail system and either re-pave or gravel. There’s one of these rails-to-trails that Dad/Bob wanted to check out here – called the Hiawatha Trial….. needless to say Scott and I were dooped into going along. We rented bikes at a ski lodge that is right on the border of Montana and Idaho then drove a few miles more and started our bike ride. The trail goes through all sorts of old train tunnels and truss bridges and the scenery is nothing short of breathtaking. But there is a piece of this that I’m leaving out — Mother Nature. She apparently didn’t like that we were doing this ride. The thermometer in the car kept dropping and dropping, and then rain started falling more and more. When we started the ride it was 53 degrees and raining very very steadily. For some reason we still got the bikes off the car and left the comforts of a car with heated seats. We were not properly dressed for this outing – by the grace of god all of us had rain jackets — but not near enough layers beneath. Let’s also mention that the temperature drops about 10 degrees within the tunnel and the water streaming along the sides is cold and deep enough to give you hypothermia (at least that’s what our shuttle driver said). We kept a bit faster of a pace to hurry along the trip, and we probably didn’t stop to take as many pictures as one normally would when riding this trail. The worst part, was that we finished and were soaking wet and muddy – yet had not thought to bring a change of clothes. (don’t think the muddy attire stopped us from jumping into a dive bar to drink some whiskey though)…. The ride was good, would have been better in the sun, or even just a bit more heat. I’ll throw on some pictures of Kelly in Ironman Village and some from the ride, just don’t expect to see pictures of me – the wet/muddy/bundled up look is not a good one on me….
Here's Kelly getting her Ironman Band for the week and getting the low-down from Pat.
Bob and Scott having some boy time. The 'mud stripe' came free with the ride.
Can you believe it? The day is rapidly approaching. Tomorrow is flight day. Kelly, Scott and I will be leaving the oven I affectionately call Austin to head off to Idaho. We are all leaving tomorrow, however, in my procrastination I missed the cheap options on their flight, so I’ll be getting there by other means – just another airline, please don’t go off and assume I’m hitch hiking across America.
You may or may not have realized this, but this is not our first family venture to Idaho. A spring break not so long ago (well, probably 10-15 years ago). The Cragen Clan packed up the family mobile and drove from Portland to Idaho for some plush skiing adventures. You see, when we lived in Oregon Bob and Sher decided that snow skiing should be a family activity we partake in. So for christmas one year Kelly and I got some really bright, really obnoxious, totally 90′s ski outfits. Now you see the difference in this new family hobby, was that Kelly and I were young and fearless, Bob and Sherry were a little more hesitant on the sticks. You see how this goes – Kelly and I pick up on it a little faster than the ‘rents.
However, for one spring break we decide to venture out from our typical over-crowded Oregon slopes to Idaho. We heard rumors that this place was lush, powder-rich, and totally unspoiled — very little crowds if you will. I must add one more piece to this story… every summer our family flew to Missouri for some quality time with our extended family. I have a very distinct memory of being in Festus, MO and my aunt suggesting we rent a movie. Fast forward 3 hours later (after getting the VHS, popping it in the player, rewinding because the chumps before us didn’t, then watching the movie) Kelly and I were inspired. The movie masterpiece was titled (and I only know this after hours of research and recruiting a few friends and their google genius) ASPEN EXTREME. Oh man, this movie was awesome. If you don’t recall this gem here is the trailer:
So in this movie the two main characters do some back country skiing. Trick is… they stay perfectly in line with eachother and it carves out Figure 8′s all the way down the fresh pow-pow. Kelly and I were never able to perform this act because it was always too crowded at our typical skiing holes. However, in Idaho it was a whole different story. Picture two girls skiing up the the lift, getting off and trying our damn-dest to carve the figure 8′s and absolutely noone was in our way. Kelly would lead the first time and I would try to stay perfectly in line with her turns. We would get to the lift, chat about our successes and failures – then I would lead and she would try to stay in line with me. It was amazing. We are two very competitive and determined people — we were going to master the 8′s. We did this no less than 10 times I’m sure. Around the 3rd or 4th time we got to the bottom and kelly mentioned that some lady looked hurt – we gave it a moment of silence then went back to figure out how to get the 8′s. Pretty much the first person down was the eyes and ears of our duo — the person in the back had to be fine-tuned into the front skier and could not be distracted. So I was in front the next time — we got to the lift and I said:
me: man, Kel, you weren’t lying, that lady really does seem hurt, she was yelling.
kelly: that totally sucks…. but seriously, why did you take such a sharp turn around corner number 3 — that was poor form.
me: mah bad, let’s try again… you lead.
Now we go down again and the lift convo goes:
kelly: wow, not only is that lady screaming now, but she’s getting loaded up in a sled to be taken to the bottom of the mountain… hope she’s ok.
me: yeah me too… I wish she would get out of our way though.
Next convo:
me: ay carumba, I wonder what that lady did…. but at least there’s some people with her now. She still just seems like shes in so much pain because she’s really screaming loudly.
kelly: indeed… wanna try another run?
So off we went on our merry way. We were told to meet the rents for lunch at noon. Our family is very time oriented so when we showed up 5 minutes late we were worried they might be upset. But they were nowhere to be found. 10 minutes went by… 15…. 20…. 25…. Kelly decided to run up to the hotel room to drop off some of our layers — the figure 8′s worked up a sweat. I’m sure you can see where this is going — Kelly walks into the room and there lies my mom – bandaged and iced all up and down her leg. Allegedly, she had taken a spill on the mountain. But seriously how were we to know that that ‘poor lady’ was our mom? Were we supposed to recognize her outfit? Were we supposed to realize that her ‘cries of pain’ were indeed yells out to her spawn? To make matters worse, some girl from my softball team actually skied up to my mom while she was whimpering on the ground and asked if she was ok (unfortunately this girl didn’t even know we were going to be in Idaho – thus making is seem as though we should have recognized her if this girl did…. I submit that she clearly wasn’t as focused a skier as we were… but whatevs). Ugh! and to really cement how bad of daughters we were my mother’s injuries were kinda horrible — she tore her ACL, partially tore her MCL, and (le sigh) cracked her patella. I won’t proceed with how much worse of a family we were, like for instance when my dad and I took my mom’s skis to get re-adjusted for my boots since clearly she wouldn’t need them for the rest of the trip, and well…. they were better than mine. Seriously, shameful.
But let’s just put it this way… Idaho has wronged us once, and we have a score to settle. You mess with our family, we’ll mess back — just give us a bit of time. It would have done nothing to try to even the score back then — what could I have done? kicked the mountain? No no… we found our weapon – it’s Kelly. She’ll be cutting through their water and speeding along their roads. She will be showing them that nothing they can throw at her can stop her. CDA has cold water? BAH! that doesn’t even make her blink. You want to challenge her to ride her 112 miles on her bike? She laughs and says “fine, I’ll do that AND I’ll run a marathon after mwahahahahaha” Watch out Idaho, we’re coming…
… too much time on their hands.
You ever wonder what happens when you spend hours and hours training? My theory – you spend a lot of time entertaining yourself while alone in the water, biking, or running. I suppose one way to entertain yourself is to create a song…
I stopped by and saw Kelly today on my way to work. I had to drop off a Team Preddy Tee for one of her coworkers, and we figured out that would be the best arrangement – otherwise i won’t see her til Friday (and we all know that people want their shirts before then). Oh, and if you’re a out-of-state Team Preddier I am sending your t-shirts out today so start checking for packages. My tangents always interrupt me, buuuuut, it was a nice little treat to get to see Kelly in the a.m. She is definitely a morning person, and that trait is rubbing off more and more on me. Not only did I get to stop in and chat with her while she was torturing (eeeer, I mean, treating) a patient but she gave me a gift. I love gifts (giving and receiving), and I especially LOVE when they are spontaneous and a complete surprise.
Said gift included giftcards to starbucks and barnes and noble — so that I can entertain myself between the moments when she will be zooming by my cheer-station in CDA…. and ALSO (I know, as if the gift cards weren’t enough) she made me a coffee mug. She definitely got the art genes in our family, and she is constantly in ‘create-mode.’ So this painted mug is super awesome (and yes, I’m a morning person as mentioned above, but that has driven me to a coffee dependency). Not only is the background done in my favorite color: Blue (and actually a shade very similar to the Team Preddy Tees — coincidence? not sure), but it also has three very amazing words scribed on:
live
dance
giggle
cool right? Reminds me of a book I once read (yes, I’m cultured) called Eat, Pray, Love. The book focuses on the authors journey to find herself. She visits three places and absorbs one aspect that is traditionally celebrated in that culture. Basically she goes through self introspection while experiencing pleasure in Italy, devotion in India, and finally balance in Indonesia. It’s a good book, I found the author a bit whiney on occasion, but all in all it was enjoyable – pick it up if you haven’t already read it. So if those are the authors 3 most valued traits/words… then I think Kelly got my “three words” perfectly.
Staring with live: I love living of course, who doesn’t? but I really try to embrace it. I would like people to think of me as having a try-anything-once (maybe even two or three time) attitude. I’m up for anything – especially when it involves friends and adventure.
Dance: oh man I love to have fun… I love to dance… I even love to make a fool of myself. Dancing the action, and also the spirit of dancing. Dancing is kinda allowing the body to be your method of expression – whether that be literally dancing or not, I never miss a turn on the dancefloor.
giggle: I try to see the humor in everything, even when that makes me slightly immature (aka when I snickered on a bike ride when passing a lady whose race number was 69). I like to giggle and laugh as often as possible… I truly believe that there’s no better times than the times when you’re laughing.
So Kelly… right on…. I love everything about the mug – the look, how much coffee it can hold, that its dish washer safe, what it stands for, every detail! – right down to the message on the bottom.
As far as Kelly goes… one of her words is most certainly ‘believe.’ She believes in herself – such that she constantly tests and pushes herself. She believes in love, and she certainly believes in her friends and family. She is a believer and a dreamer, and let’s not forget an inspiration to many.
I think, like many people, media can inspire me. As already discussed, I use music to pump me up in many different ways – that’s not rare. I also like movies. I’ve added a few clips here and there throughout the blog with Ironman stuff that’s pretty inspiring in my opinion.
I stumbled across a blog today that I think is pretty entertaining (click here for this Ironman’s Journey)– be careful if you are at work and like reading about training, ironmans, triathlons, or any of that jazz because you might lose track of time and waste all day. This is a dude that lives in Wisconsin and blogs about his training – he did one ironman in 2006 and is going for another in 2009.
Most interesting on this site is a documentary he made. Again, absolutely don’t click on this if you don’t have time to waste. This documentary is an hour long…. so hold off on watching until you’re on your couch at home, have popped some popcorn and are ready to be inspired. Becoming Ironman Documentary
Other movies I find inspiring: breaking away, remember the titans, chariots of fire, hmmm, what else?… Cars? (yeah I went there).
However, I’m not going to suggest to Kelly that she sits around and watches movies for the remaining days before her Ironman. Instead I hope that everyone who reads this will send her an email, give her a call, or send her a text with their words of support and motivation. Look, I’ll even do a little blog magic and hook you up with her email address: Kelly’s Email
Ok, I know I promised that I wouldn’t make this blog about myself, but screw that, I talk about myself plenty as it is — why not take it just a smidgen further with this post…. Kelly I really think you will enjoy this.
It all starts with just a simple google search. From time to time I like to look my family up on google. I think it’s fun to see what little traces we have left behind. If I look up my dad I find some info about his former working life, and I also find news about the dr pepper museum (if you haven’t heard me brag, let me do so by informing you that my dad is a HUGE deal in Waco and is on the board of directors of the Dr. Pepper Museum). If I look up my mom I get lots of teacher business. She too is a huge deal, I can’t even put into words how amazing she is at what she does. If I had a dollar for everytime a teacher/collegue of hers has approached me and told me about how influential she has been in their lives I would be at least a thousandaire. I never really knew what to say to these people when they went on and on about how great my mother was – that is until I met a fabulous couple in virginia beach this past october. Before I would get awkward and say ‘thanks’ – but I always thought it was weird to say thanks when the compliments weren’t for me, they were for my mom. However, in VA beach we were doing this very thing to a son (aka we were complimenting him endlessly on how fabulous his mom was). He looked at her, then he looked across the room at his dad and said “thanks, my dad is completely in love with her too.” – Ha! fabulous – I now can deal with the throngs of Sherry fans.
ANYWAYS… this blog is about me yo! Oh yeah, and of course if I google Kelly I get a lot of race results. Last but not least in this attempt to waste time I google myself. Sure it’s vain – are you willing to admit that you’ve never done it – and if you haven’t what are you waiting for?? So on my google quest today I threw my name in the hat. This can be fun too because I can either do Andi Cragen or I can spice it up and go official with ‘Andrea Cragen.’ Well I started with Andrea and of course the dreaded Duquesne soccer profile came up (seriously? is there no lifetime on internet pages – will this one never die? – was it necessary to take our pictures AFTER we had practice? – these questions haunt me). But alas, there was a new webpage that I had never seen before. It caught my eye because it said something about the Deerfield Bluefins. Why would this catch my eye you ask? Because this was a swim team that Kelly and I swam on when we lived in California…. didn’t know we lived there? yeah, that’s because it was long ago – way before the days of internet. So of course I clicked on the link to see what this page was up to. Could there be a girl named Andrea Cragen currently living and swimming in Deerfield?
Are you ready for this? It’s a records page. That’s right! Yours truly currently still holds a record for swimming…. seriously!?!?!?! SWIMMING! Kelly is a natural swimmer, but me? not so much. But according to this website I hold the record for the 5-6 year old mixed relay. It was set on the beautiful day of August 4, 1990. Apparently the team of Kelly Anderson, Andrea Cragen, Maggie Galasso, Subaru Takeshita are unstoppable. Sad to think that all this time I have been trying to prove myself in so many sports – but I had already hit my peak at 6. I always knew that 6 was my favorite number for a reason – apparently its when I was at my best.
so here ya go, check out the legacy I have left: http://www.deerfieldbluefins.com/records
well, I have decided to set up a bit of an interview with Kelly. As her sister, I would like to pretend that I know everything about Kelly, but clearly that is impossible, so I decided a few question and answers were in order… I came with my press hat on, a recorder set, and sat her at a table with one solo hanging light bulb shining on her face. Call me ruthless, but we needed the truth.
favorite color: deep red, like my bike.
food that you would never, ever, ever give up (even if told it will certainly, without a doubt take 5 years off your life): any type of candy: hot tamales, jelly beans or cherry sours.
part of the ironman you look forward to the most: crossing the finish line and hearing the announcer say, “Kelly Preddy, you are an IRONMAN!!” I imagine a huge smile on my face and my arms in the air!
part you dread the most: the 26.2 miles of running.
what was the first thought that popped into your head when your registration went through for the ironman: a mixture of “I’m so excited I got in” and “oh shit, I’m actually going to do this”
favorite day of training: Saturdays- long training days- 5:30 hour bike ride followed by 1 hour run.
favorite thing to do on a day off: lie on the couch, read, hang out with friends & family
5 things you absolutely must do before dying: complete an IM, have kids, travel… everywhere…
favorite sibling: Andi, of course!
what’s at your house from netflix right now: Friday night lights season 3, I have two others coming, can’t remember.
mountains or beach for vaca: beach
first things you would buy if you won the lottery: an Element, a tri bike, pay off the house
best costume you’ve ever worn: sexy pirate in college
favorite toy from back in the day: I don’t remember specific toys, just that I liked to play IN the toybox
in one city, where are you from (this can be a particularly hard question for the Cragens): Portland, OR
when we alzheim in the home, what memory do you think we will constantly refer to: probably something really obscure from when we were little like wanting to pogo ball
favorite adult beverage: frozen mango margarita
best gift (either given or received): my engagement ring J
do you have a pre-race ritual? setting up my transition area, visualizing the race, visualizing my finish. I have a routine breakfast as well.
will you be embarrassed of me when I act a fool at the race? absolutely not! I would smile and laugh and feel very loved and supported. Bonus points if you can make the rest of the family, including scott, to act a fool.
what food do you think you will crave for your post-race meal? a coke for sure. burger & fries? no idea.
do you have any mantras you say to yourself while training/racing? of course! keep going. run with your heart. run with your core, relax your shoulders, breathe. c’mon fierce. one step at a time. I-M-I-T! (ironman in training)
Initially, you said this would be the one and only Ironman…. changing your mind? or too early to tell? definitely too early. I have thoughts of doing another one because I like training so much. Only the race can tell.
if you could have one super power, what would it be? too not need sleep. Think how productive I would be!
upon encountering a genie, what would your three wishes be? 1. Please make my family healthy. 2. please clone BonBon. 3. ummm, unlimited wealth so I can take care of everyone and live comfortably.
If you could visit one place in the world, where would it be? Scottish highlands
food guilty pleasure? nachos.
I understand that some of my posts might get a tad wordy and infused with too much ‘Andi’ so I will let some videos do that talking today…
I don’t know who Ann is…. but here she flies through CDA in last years Ironman…
and then, because I do crossfit, and like any other person who does it, I have become completely obsessed with it…. here is a badass video of the crossfit games that happened this past May…
Qualifiers from CrossFit Central on Vimeo.
Envision the video I make of Kelly’s Ironman to be a combo of these….. ooooooo boy, can you say badass??
Looks Who is Speaking Up...