LOCKED IN
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
HUNDREDS OF SWIMMING CAPS bobbed in the blue-green waters of Northwest Indiana’s Wolf Lake. I strained to catch a glimpse of my husband, Todd, among the Leon’s Triathlon competitors.
“Do you think he’s okay?” I asked Emily, my teenage daughter. We’d come from our home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The first racers were already making their way across the beach to their bikes for the second leg. “He’s been out there a long time.”
Emily nodded, her lips pressed tight. This wasn’t easy for either of us.
I’d never worried about Todd the first seven years of our marriage, the second for both of us. He was strong, tall, independent. Retired Navy, though he still worked the same job as a nuclear health physicist. He absolutely lived to compete. He’d done 75 triathlons and 35 marathons, a passion that bordered on obsession. Vacations were spent traveling to competitions. His training regimen—times, distances, splits, routes, heart rate and more, all recorded faithfully on a spreadsheet—took priority over everything. Including me, I sometimes felt.
