The Liberty Ladies (Part One)

(Warning** : This is Part One of a two-part picture-laden story of five strong and courageous Liberty Ladies who participated in the Liberty to Liberty Triathlon, taking ourselves from the Statue of Liberty in New York City to the Liberty Bell/Museum of Art in Philadelphia.)

They canceled the swim.

I was disappointed. Believe it or not, I had wanted to swim in the Hudson River -- dead bodies, flotsam, jetsam, et al. With my injured hip, I was thinking the swim might be my one shot at glory for the day. Not to mention, I had planned to shove a disposable, underwater camera into my wetsuit and get an "in agua" picture of all of the lady swimming beauties in front of the Big Lady herself...

via Streetr's Flickr

but, alas, swimming was not meant to be...

We honored Lady Liberty, each in our own way, garnering all of her energy, beauty and support....she, the Mother of Liberty -- we, the mothers of 15 children all-together.

Great friends, all of us...and, two of us, sisters racing together...


The night before the race, we went to Manhattan to soak up the energy of Times Square and eat a pre-race Italian meal.


Even the Empire State Building had her colors lit in honor of our race *wink...


We awoke the next morning to a beautiful day and we were rip-roaring, raring-to-go on our 90-mile bike ride through the horse country of New Jersey into Philadelphia.


(And yes, that's the Hudson River we were supposed to have swum in...)

Mind you, we had serious strategies and preparations for this race. Not only did we have to get our bikes up to New Jersey and our car down to Philadelphia, but we had to have properly-attired bikes and decorum as well.

We are, after all, Liberty Ladies in every sense of the word.

Maura radio-ed to the team that she had the crowns...


Our friends had sent us off with fierce tattoos, warrior rhinestones, and flag stickers,


and we brought lots of supplies for decorating ourselves, our bikes and anyone else we could get our hands on...


Including our bus driver, Regina. I am forever grateful to Regina, our newly-coronated Liberty Bus Queen, for blessing us on our safe ride and, most importantly, for blessing my hindered hip.


Before long, we were all Beauty-fied,


Our water bottles were full, sunscreen was on, and we were ready at the START...

Willing, of course, to take time out of our pre-race meditation routines for a photo-op -- always, always remembering that we are Liberty Ladies...And, our fans need us, no matter what the cost to ourselves.

We were all lined up to start individually -- 15 seconds apart from one another.

I knew it was a good omen for me when the woman in front of me was Number 111. And she became my new friend, Mary from Seattle. Yes, that's right, I couldn't help myself, Tina Turner channeled through me...Big wheels keep on Turnin', Proud Mary keep on Burnin', Rollin' Rollin' Rollin' down to Philly....


Ooops... I digress...again...I'm surprised I have any readers at all...

OK, so we're finally all lined up at the start and ready to go....


But, now I think I've overloaded your capacity for photos for one day...

Tune in tomorrow to see the unbelievable transformation of the Liberty Ladies...soon to be produced as a made-for-TV movie...