I flew up for a day to meet Matt Dixon—Coach Extraordinaire of purplepatch Fitness. I had talked to Matt on the phone, and he was spot on in his personality dialysis of me. He said, “You are one of those people who will get a few months into training, get bored, want training to be over with and just do the race.” Yeah, he had me pegged!

In 2010, I ran the LA Marathon without running over 6 miles in training. I signed up a month before because I had hurt my shoulder doing Crossfit, so I thought I’ll just go run 26.2 miles. The last time I ran a marathon was NYC 1996 and I finished in 3:59:47! I finished LA’s Stadium to the Sea in 4:49:11. Could I have done better with some good coaching and training…yes! I am blessed with athletic genes and cursed with the thought of dying from boredom doing the same thing over and over…hence why I do Crossfit, trapeze, hip hop, yoga, Indo-row etc…I love to try new things! Which brings me back to the Coeur d’Alene (there should be a test on how to spell that correctly!) Ironman and my coach Matt!

It was Monday, November 11th and the weather was beautiful! I arrived in San Fran and took in the sights.

Union Square. I had asked a young woman who was standing next to a table of brochures if she could take my picture in front of this heart and she looked at me with disdain and said, “I don’t DO pictures.” I was embarrassed and then a group of girls came up to also take pictures with the heart so I asked them. Welcome to FRIGID San Fran!

I had a late lunch with Matt and his beautiful dog Willow at a little French brasserie in Noe Valley (which is like the Brentwood of San Fran). We talked and planned the course for CDA IM and then he told me to be at the pool 5:15am.

I walked back towards downtown going through the Mission District and fell in love with Clarion Alley.

I walked up Polk Street, past the Civic Center.

I passed restaurants with ducks hanging in the window and people smoking. The smell of smoke, both cigarette and marijuana filled the streets, and I suddenly appreciated LA’s smoking ban.

I got back to my hotel, set my alarm clock for 4:30am and of course barely slept as I thought I might not wake up!

The swim took place at a school pool and I was put in the slow lane…my swimming sucks..I really have no technique and Matt made sure to tell me I had some work to do back in LA! After the swim we drove out to Golden Gate Park to meet up with some other triathletes to run. Matt stayed back and jogged with me. He said that my form was good, but all I could think about was how out of shape I felt and how was I going to do a full Ironman?! After the run I flew back to LA…happy that Matt was my coach…he said that he’d get me to the IM without injury and he was confident I’d finish it, but I had butterflies in my stomach and a lot of work to do before June!