The two things that have been the most important to me in my life in this past year, the two things that I have anticipated and feared the most, have been my first Ironman triathlon, and the potential death of my father.

They both happened at the same time.

On Thursday the week before the race, I got the call and had to rush home. I didn't make it in time. I had always said that I would do the race even if my father passed away on the same day. I never thought it would come this close, and I realized then that doing my first Ironman a week after my father's death was an emotional challenge I wasn't sure I was up to. In order to get back to New York and then to Lake Placid, I would have to leave shortly after the funeral. I wasn't prepared to leave my mother so soon. But my amazing mother ordered me to "go to Lake Placid and win that Ironthing!"

My family didn't understand what I was doing, but they understood that I had to do it.

With their blessing, I was back to New York on Tuesday night and off to Lake Placid with Devon Carranza on Thursday morning [July 26, 2001]. Many more blessings were to come, starting with me making one phone call for hotel cancellations and ending up with a room that opened up to the swim start!

By now you have heard about this incredible mass start of almost 1800 swimmers. Swimming is my best thing so I was surprised to find myself practically panicking from the aggressiveness of the early part of the swim. I had trouble even staying horizontal at one point. Ironman is such an emotional battle, that at this point I wasn't sure I had what I needed emotionally to even finish the swim. But I finished lap 1 in 32 minutes, much to my surprise, and entered the conga line to get back in for lap two. Thity-seven minutes of swimming-slash-wrestling later, I was out of the water and being stripped by the first of many cute volunteers I would encounter throughout the day.

Thank God I was out of the water. I was looking forward to the bike ride, as well was my totally fierce new, and little, bright red biking outfit!!

The bike ride was great. The Adirondacks area has some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. At mile 56, you get a bag of special needs which you packed for the rest of the bike ride. As I stopped to change my bottles and eat a P and J sandwich, I watched bikers flying by, not stopping. Ironman lesson one, You don't need to make a lunch break out of the special needs stop! I must have added 10 minutes to my bike time from that alone.

The second lap was much windier, but I still felt fine even though I was beginning to worry a little about the run. I had never done a marathon before.

After a much faster transition from bike to run, I grabbed a picture of my father, put it in my back pocket and I was off. I must have run for a half mile before I realized that I still had my biking gloves on! Enter another amazingly hot guy, who volunteered to take them back to my bike.

I always knew that if I could just begin the run feeling good and actually running, I would be fine. At mile thirteen I changed into a long shirt that really helped me through the darkening and rainy conditions. I saw Audra [Farrell], Claudia [Cummings], Devon [Carranza], Ronn [Seely], and Gerry [Valentine] and everyone looked great. We had all worked so hard, and nothing that happened now could take that away from us.

I felt OK, but the finish line seemed so so far away.

Mile 20 brought me to more miles than my legs have ever seen at one time. But I was moving, mostly still running, and beginning to anticipate the finish. But I knew that if I wanted to beat 14 hours, I would have to run the last 6 miles with no walking and at a pretty good pace. This proved to be my biggest emotional challenge yet, so I pulled out my father's picture and before I knew it, I could hear the finish line. At 13:54 I could see the finish, I began to scream and I took off my over shirt. I was a mess, but I still wanted to take a good picture at the finish line!

At 13:55 I crossed the finish line. All I wanted to do was finish, standing, not sick, and happy. I walked to the corner and all the emotion from the last week and a half, from the last year, just came pouring out. Thanks so much to Devon and Evelyn [Heinbach] for being there for me at that time. I did it, and that's what my Dad would have wanted.

Finish or no finish, I am so happy for all of us who took this thing on. This wasn't just about the race, this was a much longer process and as far as I'm concerned, when we got to the swim start that day, in different stages of emotional and physical health, but still there and ready, we had already won this "Ironthing".