www.ellenliveslifetothefull.com

Sunday, December 30, 2012

What a year it was!!

Well,  you won't believe this but I lost my log on details to my Blog!  Hence my radio silence for 6 months....yes, unacceptable I know but if you add that to moving house AGAIN! (3rd time in 18 months thanks to my husband!) and training and racing for another Ironman  - then maybe I'll be forgiven right ??

So....where do I begin....?

How about when Don came home from work just a few months ago and said - "honey let's move up to the city , I've been offered a chance to go back and work for the Mandarin Oriental Hotel Company as General Manager of the SF property".....I blinked and thought about it for a few minutes....leaving Carmel after only 6 months,  moving house again....ugh....and leaving the most beautiful place on earth....not sure....then I saw the joy in his face and I told him "you got me at honey".   Only snag was , had to race an Ironman on November 18th and he was scheduled to begin work on November 1st!  Nothing like adding a few extra challenges into the mix!

Onto Ironman Arizona 2012...what a week that was! Just to recap,  18 months ago, my good friend Dave Watkins called me and said "Elle do you fancy doing another Ironman?".....to which I replied...."no"....(quickly)....he then said "well what about if it was for something bigger then just us?  what about if we got others to join us and we made a documentary movie about us, inspiring others along the way and raising funds for heart disease prevention?"....to that I said "ok I'm in...you got me at heart disease prevention"....so what a year it has been.  Not only did we need to get some others to join us but we also needed to quickly learn how to become film makers!  Sure why not add that to our day jobs :-))

Filming started November 2011 and so far we have filmed from Seattle to Carmel, from Honolulu to New Hampshire and lots of places inbetween.  We have captured 8 crazy stories  - what it takes to train for an Ironman , while holding down a job, raising a family and being a life long cardiac patient.  It has been an emotional rollercoaster, with more downs than ups if I'm honest but the journey we have taken has been worthwhile and our goal is to rock the world when we finally release this documentary movie....(Donald claims we will be going to the Oscars no less!).

As for race week itself....well....it was simply unbelieveable, words don't do it justice so please check out our photos on our facebook site.ref=hlhttps://www.facebook.com/HeartFlatlinetoFinishline?ref=hl  
As for me,  it was one tough day....not helped by the fact I was de-railed 48 hours before the start by pretty bad food poisoning.  My body was utterly depleated and I had almost 13 hours of stomach cramps and pain to deal with in addition to the physical ordeal of racing an Ironman....well nothing like making it even harder for a better story right?!!  But I'm thankful that I was able to compete and even finish which was quite something ....and was totally beyond my comprehension at 7am on race day.    

So what's next....well we have over 250 hours of footage to review (makes for very entertaining evenings in our household I can tell you!) and the huge task of raising enough funds to be able to move into post production (any donations welcome!! - please visit http://flatlinetofinishline.com/donate/ to learn how you can help us).  Our ultimate goal is to raise fund to help screen kids for heart defects, plain and simple....with these screening, we save lives. 

Here's to 2013 !!!  LIVE LIFE TO THE FULL!