Whose idea was this? Oh right. God's.

My boss still laughs at how excited I was after my first 5K several years ago. This was a big deal for me at the time; 6 months later, he had thrown me into a 50K - and I survived. So I guess it's not that big of a surprise when, as a person who never desired to be her own boss or own her own business, instead of working my way up by, let's say, an on-line store, a small in-church store, or even going through a franchise, I decide to build my own Christian bookstore from the ground up myself. But reality hadn't set in; not with the first meeting of our new s-corporation officers; it wasn't opening the first box of business cards, receiving my first book order from the distributor, having an official logo worked up by a graphic artist. It wasn't even the $9500 check I wrote for a deposit and first month's rent on a rent space. It wasn't opening a bank account with 6 figures to start on build out and inventory. The reality of opening a bookstore from scratch came from my incomplete triathlon. Many of you have followed Iron Girl Traveling. Needless to say, blogs have not been updated recently due to other more urgent priorities. But my alter ego took a dual hit: a mandatory week vacation left me stuck in Sacramento for nine days straight and I didn't go further than 16 miles to Roseville. The kicker is, I had tickets to Alaska and Hawaii that went unused. HAWAII, PEOPLE. Then the following week, a sprint triathlon I had been braving near-drowning experiences to at least moderately train for suddenly showed up on my doorstep, and I hit a wall. Demands of building a brand-new business while continuing to work full-time and meet other day to day responsibilities left me completely unprepared when I slept through my alarm the morning of the triathlon. I scrambled to get out the door, knowing I'd never make it on time for the starting horn. I had to be ok with cheering from the sidelines. That was the first time the enormity of what I was trying to handle sunk in. My travel bug ungainly on its back, legs vainly thrashing to upright itself, my wanna-be triathlete identity suffering schizophrenic episodes. Now it feels real.