run this amazing day

it's not you, it's me

2013-05-14T20:04:00.001-04:00

You guys, I just don't want to.

Maybe I've worn out my welcome on the internet, maybe I'm getting old and tired, or maybe any original thoughts I once had have since dried up since we moved to Colorado. Turned into tumbleweeds and blown away. But I'm not going to make any sulky apologies for being absent or sweeping declarations about being done here on the internet, because if there is one goddamn thing I have learned since I started this blog, it's not to make grandiose promises in print. Or to really say anything that I would not instead paint on my naked body and walk up and down the street shouting.

So I will say this. Life is, simply, good.

Part of it is that I don't want to sit down and talk about my training because I feel like I have nothing to say that is new or interesting or exciting. I ran an hour easy today. Do you know how many times in the past year I've run an hour easy? Conservatively, a billion. Who wants to hear about that? Not me.

Maybe it's because after living through six solid months of crazy hellish life stress from every direction, I want to make my circle smaller. I want to keep my loved ones close, I want to wake up and dance through my day and then snuggle into bed at night and let it all go. I've got a good circle this year, my support system feels solid and mighty and strong. I know who is in my corner and who is waving from across the street while checking Twitter on their phone.

The only reason I'm here now is because I felt like I should talk about the fantastic training weekend I had in southern CA this past week, about how awesome it was to chase Anabel's ass up and down and all over the mountains and through the water; to run alone, fifty yards from the ocean I love so dearly; to sit at dinner, three girls, and laugh when one of my old friends that joined us was straight-up horrified at the both the amount of food we ordered and the speed at which we put it down. You three are so small, he said later in the car, where does it all go?

It goes into pushing off the wall, again and again, laughing at the guy with purple toenails and hoping that actually thinking about streamlining my arms will grab me the 4 seconds I keep dropping (it won't) and leaving 3 seconds behind instead of 5 like the dirty water cheater I am.

It goes into five hours of climbing and descending, standing out of the saddle, heart pumping hard and singing at the absolute top of my lungs, sweat rolling into my ears and butt crack just to get views like this.

It goes into groaning and sucking it up when I start counting women in the last four miles of a half marathon and realize that I CAN catch all of them but two before I hit the finish line. If I'm willing to hurt, a little, which maybe I'm finally figuring out how to do.

I'm in love with training right now, I feel good about the work I'm doing, but all the work I am doing is all the work I can do. Steady, day in and day out, load it up, recover it back, over and over, however much I can handle. I'm only signed up for three more races between now and the end of the year. All big races, sure, but big or small, a race is just a day. And I would trade race day - even a brilliantly fun day like I had in New Orleans - for the training days I've had here in Boulder, in California, in a minute. In a second, it's not even close. Spending all day on my bicycle, chasing Sonja (not allowed to chase her husband), chasing Mikki and Mo, chasing Anabel, chasing whoever will show up to be my carrot, sometimes chasing no one - this is my joy.

This is where my heart is happiest, and full.

And this, for a while, is where I will be.

the "captioned photos" life update

2013-05-08T11:16:00.001-04:00

May 1st.

Puppies.

Sniffles.

Cycling.

Running.

Running (wrinkled).

Skiing.

Running.

Gift cards plus majorly on sale.

Puppy.

New Orleans 70.3: race report

2013-04-25T12:14:00.003-04:00

The last thing I felt like doing after all the events of last week was racing.

The week before the race didn't feel like a normal taper. I wasn't crabby and crazy and finding mysterious injuries everywhere, I didn't give up something essential in my diet, and I did not almost get divorced. The only noticeable difference in my life was that with only one workout to do most days, I slept in and then felt blah and had crazy hair until lunchtime. I spent the entire week not wearing a watch or a strap or looking at a clock, and I had almost no desire to complete workouts with everything else that was going on. I floated through the week feeling meh. No pre-race anxiety, no stressing about times or distances, just meh.

Saturday morning I flew down to New Orleans, where it was sunny and full of palm trees and 70+ degrees out. That helped. I picked up my tiny rollerskate of a rental car and drove to Heidi's house (best race host ever, by the way) with the windows down and the music blaring. That helped too.

Pre-race logistics were relatively simple, especially compared to the nightmare of my last 70.3, and I was fed, organized, and in bed before 9. I asked Sonja for a "go fucking hurt yourself you aren't going to die out there" pep talk, but instead she just told me to go have fun. No paces, no digging a hole in the floor of the pain cave, no visor down hurting hard. The point of this race was to chase the dust bunnies out of winter, not hunt for speed and pain. And I almost felt disappointed, somewhere inside, that I didn't have numbers to hold myself to especially off the bike, but I also felt relief. No pressure, just go have a ball. I have no idea how my bike box fit inside that car.

We showed up to transition about eight minutes before it was closing, which is exactly how I like to roll on race morning. Get in, pump the tires, lay out the crap, and get out. The race was a TT start, so there was no getting in the water beforehand to get the OWS freakout out of the way (first time in my wetsuit since October; this race report is "do as I say not as I do" for the record). I met some really nice women while waiting to start, and as I stood around, I realized that I felt no anxiety about my day whatsoever. And when it was my turn to go, I was ready and there was a smile on my face and I leapt off the end of the dock and cannonballed into the water.

Swim: 1.2 miles, 34:56
For the first time ever, I didn't wear a watch for the swim, and THAT was one of the best decisions I made all day. I felt like I swam hard. The swim course was relatively confusing, and instead of doing recon on it beforehand, I assumed that I would just follow everyone else (as I say...). I actually thought that with the TT start, there would be a nice straight line of people to follow all the way to the dock on the other side. However, the breaks between waves plus the fact that I started near the front of my group meant there was no one to follow, so I got a little bit lost and almost swam into a boat. It was actually a pretty strange feeling - usually I can find some sort of pack to hang onto - but instead every time I popped my head up, I saw no one in the water around me. Maybe a red cap far off in front, or a pink cap stroking 30 feet to my left, but no one nearby. So I swam for a while, I watched the sun come up, and then it was time to climb up the steps and jog into transition. Wetsuit off, helmet sunglasses shoes on, clack clack clack out to the mount line and off I went. Hours after the race, when people were complaining about the swim being long and there being an extra buoy to turn around and blah blah blah, I didn't care because I didn't know my time. And when I found out my time, I still didn't care, because now I understand why people say to not wear a watch during the swim. I could look at this time and go nuts in my head because of how "slow" it is compared to my swims in the past and the work I've done this winter and my TT at this distance and my 100s and all kinds of stupid shit that doesn't matter, or I could go, "eh, sure, maybe it was a bit long," and move right along.

Bike: 56 miles, 2:59:38
We turned out of transition and climbed a tiny hill and I started to settle. I was worried about the wind but it seemed calm...until we did a 180-turn at a cone and headed the opposite direction and I realized that the wind had been at my back. Now, if you've ever ridden a bike with me, you know how much I hate the wind (and how much I curse and talk about my crotch). And I spent a lot of time last year trying to make peace with it, but then I moved to Boulder and learned a whole new level of wind. The wind, on race day, as I described it to the many, many people who didn't really care, was Boulder-windy. It was lifting my helmet off my head and smacking me in the wheels and trying to suck out my water bottles, and I spent almost three hours trying to figure out how the fuck I was going to train for a windy ironman when I could barely deal with half the distance in those conditions. The thing I said to myself over and over that was a comfort was, "everyone is dealing with this, everyone is riding the same course with the same wind," and that kept me calm and focused, albeit a bit grumpy. I worked through my nutrition and desperately prayed that we would turn our backs to the wind at some point, and there were a few miles of sweet tailwind, but for the most part we were all tucked tiny and tight with a death-grip on our aerobars trying to get nutrition down before it was blown to Mexico, for 56 miles. (Blatant race photo thievery).

As far as numbers go, I didn't look at my Garmin very often. It's set to auto-lap every 5 miles because that is the setting it comes with out of the box, so I caught a couple of those lap beeps, and laughed when I calculated how slowly I was moving. For the first ten or fifteen miles, I held back a bit in hopes that the wind would just fuck off like I was telling it to. At some point I realized it wasn't going anywhere and I needed to buckle down and crank, so that's what I did. I rode entirely based on effort and in looking at my file after the race, I'm pretty happy with the work I did in the back forty miles.

Run: 13.1 miles, 2:03:49
There is no greater joy than racking your bike on a windy day and pulling on the run shoes. None. I couldn't wait to leave the ride behind. I sat down to pee and tie my shoes (another sign of a season opener...where are my elastic laces?), grabbed my watch, my visor, and my nutrition and bounced on out of transition.

My instructions for the run were to run at a pace I knew I could hold, to high-five people and smile and laugh and just have a little party of one. The screen that is always showing on my Garmin in training shows elapsed time and heart rate, so I know what my heart is doing and when it's time to turn around, and that's it. I barely looked at it on Sunday. I still have a hard time believing how happy I was for the entire 13.1 miles.

I lapped the watch at the first mile marker and was a little surprised to see it say 9:22. The next two miles were somewhere in the 9:20s and then there were only ten miles left to run. I was waiting to see if a low was going to come, if I was going to blow-up and fall into a black hole, and I never did. A few women blazed passed me and I cheered for them (relay assholes with fantastic hair and no black river beard, just kidding, love you girls), and a man with a 69 on his calf smoked me around mile 6 and I was flat-out impressed. There was a woman handing out Coors Light somewhere after the mile 5 marker, and I'm not exactly saying that I stopped and drank one, but that 9:43 was my slowest mile of the day and I burped for the next four miles. And when I arrived at the first timing mat somewhere between miles 5 and 6, I jumped into the air and stomped on that sucker with both feet, in hopes that it would broadcast my glee back home to the poet, who I knew was anxiously waiting to see how I was doing. I wanted him to know that I was having a blast.

The miles passed pretty unremarkably from there on out. I never lost my joy, I never for one second felt weak, the smile never fell from my face, I ran every single step from T2 to the line. As I ran by, people cheered for me (because they were drunk and cheering for everyone) and told me I looked strong, and for the first time in my life, I believed them. I was passing people - not many, and quite a few people were passing me - but I don't think I've ever passed a single person when running off the bike. Ever. And all too soon it was over. (More shoplifting).

The amazing takeaway from this race for me is that my head, my mental game, my brain is exactly where I've spent so much time wanting it to be. I look back to January, where I started off this year, and what I am looking for, and I am here. I didn't go into this race chasing times, I went in chasing happiness, and that's what I found. And deep down, WAY far inside, do I actually give a flying fuck that I PR'd my run off the bike by almost 15 minutes? Just typing that makes me laugh, I almost feel like I shouldn't mention it because it just doesn't matter. If I had done the entire race Sunday and never known what my times were, I would be just as content. What matters is that I got to swim, bike, and run outside on a glorious day, I finished happy. I am that girl, the one that drinks a beer and slaps men on the ass that she's never met and sings "BOOTS WITH THE FUR" along with the aid station and cannonballs off the dock. I am jumping up and down, face cracked in half with a stupid grin, yelling, "that's right, motherfuckers!" I am changing, I am growing, I am figuring my shit out. I am back.

boston

2013-04-16T10:22:00.004-04:00

I don't have anything new to say.

Nothing profound, nothing moving, nothing more than what is merely an echo of what is being said by thousands of others this morning.

I may or may not even hit publish, and if I do, I will know that it is likely because I am just trying to make myself feel better. I am searching for comfort that I don't even understand why I need.

I'm not sure why this has affected me more than the dozens of other tragic events that have filled our world over the past few years. Maybe it's because I lived in Boston for a while, but I don't think that's it. Maybe it's because I stood in the exact spot that is being circled on maps and infographics, two years ago, myself cheering for loved ones. But I don't think that's it either. The poet pointed out that had he been running, the time on the clock would have been his and I would have been there on the sidelines, and his voice shook when he said it. And I had a pretty bad ten minutes yesterday afternoon trying to track down some of the dearest friends to my heart, one running, some cheering, all in harm's way. All, I know now, safe.

I could write about how these are my people, this is my family, but if you are reading this, than these are also your people, your family, so you understand. That is not something that needs to be said.

All I could do yesterday afternoon was stare out the window and watch the snow fall. And then I came home and gathered my family to me and sat on the couch and stared into space until I looked up and noticed that it was night.

I know that social media is reaching out and gripping each other's hands, together, like they tend to do. People need people, people need reminders that they are alive, people lean towards fight. But I desire flight. And maybe it makes me horrible, but I can't bear to be a part of it, to watch it all go by. I don't want to repost quotes or RT so someone will donate money or wear things or say things or do things.

I just want to sit here. In my own silence, stunned, with my aching heart, and grieve.

Boulder Spring Half Marathon: race report

2013-04-10T13:18:00.003-04:00

This was never going to be a race.

When my fellow ponies asked Sonja if we could do this - a half marathon in our backyard - she said yes but cackled evilly while letting us know that we'd be running it on tired legs, and I vaguely recall a threat of getting on our bikes instead of going out to brunch afterwards (these are our grumpy faces).

The theme of the past month, for me, has been a generally manageable kind of tired. I started to notice it in the weeks before Yasi came out to visit - I'm feeling worn out from the work, yes, but I also feel like I am absorbing it well. No particular workout or day had really dumped me into a big hole. Rather it was just day after day of steady and continuous loading. As the days went on, I started to wonder when it would come - the CRRAAAAAAACCKKKKK as I fell off the ledge (foreshadowing here) into exhausted psychosis.

So for this sucker, there was no taper or rest or anything leading up to this, it was simply a supported long run dropped in the middle of a steady training block. The day before, we rode out and up to Carter Lake - the first time for me - and my legs felt pleasantly ripped by the time I crawled in bed.

I woke up with the Darth Vadar voice that I associate specifically with the cycling variety of exhausted, and there was a noticeable strain in my cheerful race morning persona. It was nice to only have to drive twenty minutes to the race, and all the general pre-race happenings went quite smoothly. Sonja showed up and sent us all out to warm-up, and when we jogged back to her, she stripped us of our electronics (WHAT?!) and dumped us on the line.

Her parting shot was something along the lines of, "this should feel like the last 13 miles of the IM marathon," and boy oh boy, was she right.

When we had chatted a few days earlier, before she stole our data-capturing machines, the plan was run at MAF. Running at MAF lately has been a fight to get my HR up, and I was not looking forward to a frustrating day of hauling ass to only see 135 HR. So I wasn't that unhappy to be without my watch, but as soon as we started running, I knew it was going to be a rough. My legs weren't sore, exactly, it was more that my system felt completely beat to hell.

Mo and I ran together for the first mile or so and then she dropped me on one of the first long uphills and I never saw her again. I remember seeing the mile markers for miles two and three, and then it started to get really ugly. There was no "start slow finish fast," there was no "increase the effort at this point," there was no race strategy of any sort, there was simply tuck in and hang on and get to the finish line as fast as you can.

For me, the best way I can cope with the pain is by blocking out everything I can. In ironman that meant pulling my visor down over my eyes so I couldn't see anything but the shoes of the person in front of me, emptying my mind and focusing on nothing but how to keep moving forward. That's what this felt like. That's the darkness I was in.

After the turn-around, I managed to catch up to two women who were running together fairly easily and chatting about their neighbors, their kids, someone driving too fast down their street, I don't even know what else. I jumped on the train behind them and let their voices wash over me while I stared at the pink shoes one was wearing. For miles, I ran like this. Up hills down hills (my God so many hills) into the wind with the wind. Not looking at anything or moving any part of my body more than I needed to, eyes locked on a pair of feet.

At some point I heard the poet's voice yelling and I chucked my water bottle in his direction, and Sonja ran next to me for a few seconds and said something about swinging my arms. I walked for about five seconds twice to get gels down - the second one I really only think I took for the walk break, not for the calories - and I stopped to pee somewhere because I felt like I was bursting, but those are really the only details I can pick out of the day.

I feel like I should have more words, eloquent meaningful words, for how much this hurt - but I don't. I only know that it was horrible, and I let it be, and I didn't step away or distract myself from it. I didn't dive in the bushes and take a nap, I didn't let myself walk (other than for water), I kept the pressure on as hard as I could, which was probably not very hard. I hung on until it was finally over. It's a lesson that I need to learn, how to not back down from pain, and knowing that is probably part of what got me through.

As soon as I crossed the finish line, the poet was there, and I burst into tears.

Ugly, holy shit that hurt, can't move another step, horrified sobbing. Complete emotional let-down (gross).

It only lasted for a few minutes, thankfully, and then we proceeded to food and pants and cheering for my training buddy that won her AG and then brunch and puppy and napping. But that was the crack. I spent the rest of the day in bed, I got a solid night of sleep, and I woke up Monday feeling empty. Irritable. I spent the day crying at everything and throwing my goggles at the fence after 500 yards and hiding in my office with the door closed so I wouldn't get fired for showing up and acting like a complete lunatic. Tuesday was better, although still a touch insane, and this morning I woke up and people have stopped telling me that I look like shit. But my well is deeper now, that I know for sure. This is how it gets deeper, this is how I break through, this is the work that needs to be done for me, this year. And I know that when I'm in the final miles of the marathon in July, I'll remember this day, and I'll be able to dig deeper, to run a little faster, and to hang onto the pain just a little bit longer.

random Wednesday brain dump

2013-04-03T11:48:00.000-04:00

Last week we had quite a bit of sunny weather. While I was working from home one morning, I left the back door open and the puppies went out and laid around in the sunshine.

After realizing how happy they were, we decided to put in a dog door. We can gate them into the kitchen/back part of the house so they can't get into too much trouble, and they can go outside whenever they want to. As soon as they figure out how to get through the door...

Completely unrelated, I've been worried that I have a bit of a sugar addiction lately. Not so much candy and crap, but more the evil secret sugars that everybody hates on for sneaking into all of your food. This weekend, I discovered how to break that addiction. I made this for Easter (no, my hair was not combed but at least it was clean, thanks).

I had less than one slice and three days later, still have absolutely no interest in eating any sugar or a peep or really anything but green vegetables. Maybe ever again.

In other random shit that really doesn't matter, the poet has returned to running after the five-month break he took following his big marathon PR. We did our long runs together Sunday morning. For the first time since he started running, I get to be faster than him. I'm sure it won't last longer than another week or so while he gets his heart rate back under control but it's nice to not be smoked by my tall, lanky, runs-with-perfect-form-and-never-gets-injured husband for once.

Oh, and we painted the living room.

Happy Wednesday!

finding balance

2013-03-31T21:29:00.001-04:00

If I ever have a child - and please note that as long as the major tenants of physics and chemistry continue to hold, I will not be doing so - but if I did drop out a sprog, I would wield one of my parental rights and enroll it in piano lessons and force it to be on the swim team from the time it could talk until it finally ~~was arrested~~ moved out.

Piano lessons I've found to be maybe the single most useful thing I did from age 7-16 (other than learning how to fold notes into crazy oragami shapes and curl my bangs under without blow-drying my hair), and not just because I studied music in college. I feel like that and swimming are the two things that force your brain to grow differently, and it's tough to learn these skills as an adult because your brain is busy making snarky Facebook comments and reading hetexted.com and trying to keep the vodka from destroying the brain cells you have left. While I sat through year after year of piano lessons, I was not on the swim team. Unless you count the half of a summer that I swam with one hand pinching my nose closed and the other drunkenly paddling me across the pool until my parents mercifully let me quit, which I do not. And every time my alarm clock goes off at 5:15am for masters, I grumble about this fact.

I did, however, spend a great deal of time on skis growing up. I have a dim memory of skiing between my dad's legs on tiny little 18" skis. I recall Monday night ski lessons and hundreds of weekends at Blue Mountain, eating peanut butter sandwiches in the van to save money, and I remember MANY MANY hours spent in the car driving to winter vacations in extremely cold places to ski some more.

(How's that for the saddest snowman you've ever seen?) Except for the mini-vacation the poet and I took after ~~the worst kept secret ever~~ our wedding, I haven't spent much time skiing since I was in high school. This weekend I got to tack it onto the never-ending list of reasons why I'm so glad that we live here now.

No, it is not possible for someone to point a camera at me without my instinctive response being to pose like an asshole, but thank you for asking. I learned how to ski on the east coast, which means I could probably make it down the side of a mountain covered in pebbles and ice chunks instead of actual snow. Strapping on my skis and swishing around in the powder here - even the sloppy spring powder - is basically my idea of heaven.

I spent Saturday sliding down the side of a mountain with a good training friend (I know we look 80 years old but the sun was pretty squinty). While we did have some training-related conversations, most notably her recent marathon domination, I did not for one single second worry about the swimming, biking, or running I "should" have been doing instead of the eating, drinking, skiing triathlon that we completed. And we didn't just complete it. We were dream crushers of eat drink ski. BBQ beer DOWN THE MOUNTAIN AHOY!!

My perspective is changing, and I imagine that what generally happens when your perspective changes is that you can't believe it was any other way. I think about where my mind was a year ago, and I probably would have spun myself into a complete tizzy about missing an entire day of training - especially a weekend day of 65º weather following an entire weekend of trainer time (more on this in a second) - so close to a race. Even if I wasn't fussing outwardly, I would have been fretting on the inside, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the day because missed-training anxiety. And why? For what reason? Who does that help? Winning triathlons is not my job. Training and racing is a hobby. It's one that I enjoy tremendously and work pretty hard at, but that's all it is.

That's not to say that I have been living a crazy life of sex, drugs, rock & roll. Most of my TrainingPeaks boxes have been turning green (stupid sit-ups). Here and there, a few are yellow, and even though I didn't worry on Saturday doesn't mean I don't occasionally fall off the ledge, but if I take a step back and look at the big picture, I'm getting the work done. The other things that matter, those have been getting done too. I am a professional sleeper, I get 8-10 hours every night. Except for The Great Peep & Potato Chip PMS incident of last week, my nutrition has been solid. I've lost the 12lbs that I put on during the off-season and a couple more on top of that. I spend time in the recovery boots playing Tetris and looking at Instagram on my phone. Stress can't be micromanaged like food and sleep, but I'm working on that, too.

The flip side of taking a day off to go ski happened the weekend before, when Yasi came out for a big training weekend. Our original plan was to spend several hours a day, several days in a row, riding our bikes. All over Boulder, up and down mountains, around lakes, everywhere our two wheels could take us. That went well.

So instead we shipped the bicycle work inside, and I only had one freakout about the riding I was missing (please see: I'm a work-in-progress). We made the complete round of my personal Boulder triathlon training stomping grounds. First up was masters while the blizzard was still blizzard-ing (we took this picture a few days later, it was too cold that morning). I love being in the warm pool while snow is falling, especially when I swim under the flags just as a giant snowball falls off and nails me in the back of the swim cap. Love.

We spent a big chunk of the weekend in the pain cave at work for trainer time mixed with cartoons and gossip. Pretty heavy on the gossip the first day, pretty heavy on the pain every day after that.

We made it outside for lots of slipping, sliding, leaping, squishing - otherwise known as running in calf-deep fresh snow. My ankles were sore for days.

The tiny part of our weekend not spent training was spent eating and sleeping (no pictures of the sleeping because I'm not a weirdo who photographs you in the night).

Training is essentially the same as it's been for a while now, easy stuff here, hard stuff here, long stuff here, more easy stuff here. What's different is what is going on between my ears. I spend less time worrying, fussing, procrastinating. There is less anxiety about the things I need to get done; instead there is just dead space. I'm not fully there yet - there are still mornings when I dick around and check Twitter an extra ten times before getting on the bike - but there's a lot more get up and go happening this year than last.

And outside of training, there is more living. There are less conversations about what my pace was at MAF today and there are more conversations about what color should we paint the dining room and where should we go on vacation if we ever decide to/can afford to fly somewhere not associated with a race. It's almost ironic to me, when I think about it. Five years ago I needed to eat less pizza and do less staying up until 2am reading and drink less beer and do more worrying about eating the right things like maybe a vegetable every couple of weeks and getting in exercise and sleeping enough and at the right time. I won't say that the life I'm living now needs the opposite of all of those things, but part of finding balance for me is not having an on/off switch for a healthy lifestyle (please refer to last October through December for the "off" part of the switch). Instead, it's being able to moderate on a daily basis. Last week I had a great MAF test. I ate way too many Peeps, I completely didn't even see a box of sit-ups on one day of my schedule until three minutes ago, I ate an entire bag of snap peas in one sitting. I got at least eight hours of sleep every night, I drank two beers, the box said "easy spin" but what I did was "barely get sweaty pushing the pedals around while watching old Private Practice episodes," one night I had granola and whipped cream for dinner, every single day I got in at least 6-8 servings of fruits and veggies. I feel like quoting a different part of my favorite Al Pacino speech, where he says, "That's football, guys. That's all it is." That's my life, guys, my actual day-in-day-out life. That's all it is. And I think I'm doing okay.

little tweaks & awesome peeps

2013-03-21T12:02:00.003-04:00

Last year I was lucky enough to race for SOAS Racing. They make some pretty baller kits for women, and if you have a vagina and haven't heard of them (or read any of my blog posts before, um, this one), you should check them out. Their tri shorts got me through every race I did last year without a single chafed spot or saddle sore.

This year I'm pretty thrilled to be back on the SOAS party wagon, which is chock-full of awesome women from all over the US, quite a few of which are new and I can't wait to get to know better.

When I came out to visit Colorado last spring, I was fortunate enough to meet all the people that make up Kompetitive Edge, which is hands-down the single best tri shop I have ever wandered into. So when they put out an application in the late summer for their racing team, I filled it out as fast as my little fingers could type and sent it right back in, ~~along with a bribe for Jared and Ryan~~.

I was ALL CAPS excited to find out in December that I had been selected to join the ranks of some ridiculously awesome athletes here in Colorado, ranks that include my own coach.

I'm lucky to have these great people in my life, Kebby and Steph and Jared and Ryan, to be a part of what they do, I know that, I am lucky. And Sonja should probably get a post of her very own except that I don't want to spill all her secrets to the universe. She keeps me moving forward in the right direction, mostly in a straight line, although sometimes I will dive into the bushes or off the cliff when she isn't looking (she is probably rolling her eyes at me right now like I envision she must do at least once a day). But I couldn't do any of this without her, I wouldn't even know where to start, she's been a big part of figuring out how to get rid of my shit and make my life the joyful place I want it to be.

While visiting KE last spring to start my current trend of trying on every single pair of sunglasses in the shop and then buying none, I did a bike fit with mastermind Scott Geffre. He fixed my pinched adductor and got me on a saddle that I love and just in general contributed to the overall happiness of my 2012 crotch. At the end of last season, a couple of tweaks popped up but since I was done being in aero for three months, I instead focused on my Oreo-eating and put my bicycle worries away.

However, now it's March and time to start remembering how to get into aero without dumping into a ditch, which means it was time to get my fit checked up on. I made an appointment with Scott and ~~only tried to reschedule eight times~~ ~~was ten minutes late thanks to traffic~~ we got down to it. Here's the before:

And here's a picture of Scott on his own bicycle for no reason at all, because he's got it going ON.

All of the issues I had been having were relatively minor. My shoes were squashing my toes on the foot that has the bunion and making my fifth metatarsal feel scrunched after about an hour on the bike. My lower traps were getting pissed when I spent uninterrupted time in aero. My fussy SI joint was popping out every time I rode. I spent the few days before the fit hunting down several different pairs of shoes to try, because I knew that my shiny red slippers from last year were definitely getting the boot (HA HA....ha.).

Scott, of course, was able to throw a dart in my hips and pin down the single thing that was making everything twitchy and weird. He moved my cleats over to a new pair of shoes (the winners? Specialized Tri Vent), moved my seat forward and up a centimeter, and suddenly I'm in a whole new world of comfort (yes, I am completely incapable of getting my picture taken on the bike without making a weird face).

I went out yesterday at lunch for a spin and can tell that these tiny tweaks have made a huge difference. They was much less wiggling around on the seat, back and forth, and while I only spent a few minutes here and there down in aero, my back feels opened up and more relaxed and I'm ready for the many many MANY hours of cycling that are in my very near future.

I feel like this post turned a bit into a commercial, which I hate, but I don't often talk about this stuff so hopefully the ass pictures distracted you from getting too cranky. I feel strongly about the people in my life who make it happier and support me despite the fact that I will never actually run an 18:07 5K and all I do is post pictures of my ass and/or myself looking like an idiot on the internet wearing their brand. So with that, I'm saying thanks.

Lucky Lousiville 5K: race report

2013-03-19T13:10:00.003-04:00

A lot of people think the 10K is the worst race distance. I used to agree, but that was before I had to properly race a 5K. It hurts, a lot, and it doesn't stop hurting and it goes on forever and when you're done you have to go run ten more miles or get on the bike for three hours because, um, you only ran three miles.

Rude.

I hadn't even planned to run a 5K when my schedule was written, and because it's only a 5K, it just got kind of... wedged into the weekend. My sister was coming into town to visit and we decided that it would be fun to do a St. Patrick's Day themed race, and since the 5K is the shortest one we picked that. By Thursday night I was deep in a grumpy tired hole of training and regretting the minute I emailed Sonja to ask about "the hurting thing" and had no idea how I was going to try and run miles that started with a 7 when it made me exhausted to run miles that started with a 9 in my long run earlier that day.

Fortunately the race didn't start until 10am, so I slept in and we took our time moseying over to the race. It was extremely low key. There was no course map on the website and it wasn't going to be chip-timed, so when I picked up my packet I made sure to ask if it was a certified course. I was more concerned that it was going to be long than short (this is called foreshadowing) but all the people working packet pick-up reassured me that it was carefully measured and marked.

I did my warm-up on the course, noting that it was relatively flat and on dirt except for the first/last half mile, then climbed back in the car to put my armwarmers on and take them off over and over until it was time to line up.

There was a girl at the starting line wearing tri shorts and Newtons (Hi! ....Hannah??) so I chatted with her a bit while we waited to get started. The announcer said something about a unicorn (?) and then had us all count down from 10 and we were off.

My race plan, if you could call it that, was to not sploodge my juice in the first mile but save a bit for the last two, and to just see how badly I could fucking hurt myself, no matter what the clock said. The first mile felt brisk but not actually hard, if that makes sense, which I am sure it does not. I counted five women ahead of me from the start and decided that I didn't want to get passed by any more. I glanced down a few times in the first mile only to note that my lap pace was starting with a 7, and otherwise ignored it. The first mile beeped somewhere on the trail and then, all too soon, we were turning around to head back. This made me pretty cranky, because when a turn-around is early, it usually means you run past the finish line and around the block a few times before actually crossing the line. (More foreshadowing).

The second mile had the teeny-tiniest incline in it near the end, but in a 5K that feels like a mountain and that's when it started to hurt a bit. I heard my watch beep for the second mile and thought to myself, "Okay, worst-case scenario, you have ten more minutes of running." I passed a few people in here and a guy dressed as a leprachaun pushing a stroller passed me, but I really just remember gritting my teeth and trying to tighten up my form and all too soon, I hear my start-line-friend yelling, "the course is short!" and then, suddenly, I crossed the finish line.

As much fun as it is for a course to be short so the suffering ends, I'm actually really disappointed. I felt like I was still holding back a bit and was waiting for the last half-mile to really dig into the hurt, and I didn't get the chance to do that. (Discussion and Garmin-comparing at the finish line had it roughly a half-mile short, if not a bit more). There was no making friends with the pain, there was no having a cup of tea with suffering, I wasn't even making animal sounds yet, it was just fast and over. (I have no idea why there are so many stupid flexing photos recently, maybe they have replaced ass shots).

The guy with the clipboard doing the results let me know that I was the fourth woman over the line, but someone forgot to turn the clock on (that was sitting at the finish line) so there aren't any times or anything official. Which is fine, because having a piece of the internet somewhere saying that I ran an 18:07 5K would haunt me until I could actually do it, which is likely to be never ever ever.

So project go find the pain got derailed a bit, but it's still pretty high up on the list of stuff I want to be working on. I was more anxious about running this distance than when I stood at the start line for IMCdA last summer, and that tells me I need to be doing it more. And the fact that this didn't even hurt all that much tells me that like most fears, the thing that I'm afraid of is rather ridiculous. Which I'm pretty sure is exactly how life works.

it is our light, not our darkness

2013-03-11T08:30:00.000-04:00

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

I bought a hot pink jacket on eBay last week.

I've been selling stuff on eBay recently, just cleaning out a bit and trying to round up some extra cash, but it's a slippery slope from selling to buying. And of course I just happened to see a jacket, in exactly my size, that I didn't need in the slightest. Hot pink, purple stripes inside. Instant lust.

I almost didn't buy it, you see, because I have a lot of guilt about buying stuff I don't need, still, and also because I'm 32 years old. I'm not a sticky three-year-old, I don't need a hot pink jacket with purple stripey insides. I need vegetables and oil changes and that little metal thing that holds the water heater to the wall, and even when I have all of those things, I need to squirrel away every dime I can scratch together.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

I need to be able to protect my family. I failed at this, before. Everything I had done to prepare for the worst, everything I had saved, it wasn't enough.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

Until everything happened with Graham, me and my quirky little blog mostly flew under the radar. I'm not a full-time lifestyle blogger, I'm not a professional triathlete breathlessly reporting victory after victory, I'm just a runner who happened to get injured and decide to start yapping about it while cooped up in bed after shoulder surgery with a full battery on my laptop. That's it. That's what I will tell you when you ask me about this space on the internet that I've spray-painted purple and hung up pictures of my dogs, that is all the credit I ever give myself. I am the blogging equivalent of someone telling me that they liked my pants, and instead of saying, "thank you," I say, "these old things? I'm so fat, they look horrible, don't even mention my thighs, I can't believe I'm even out in public dressed like the marshmallow man that crushed New York."

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?

I would tell you then - I would still tell you now - I am not brilliant. Gorgeous. Talented. Fabulous. I am regular, less than regular, even, a nothing-special girl.

Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.

The snarky self-deprecation worked for a while, the swipes at my own mediocrity got me by. And then Graham got sick. I was overwhelmed by the graciousness of the human spirit, I will probably never stop bringing it up, only now is the weather starting to change because of the wings that flapped last summer. But the flip side is that situation dragged me out from under my rock and pinned me to the wall, naked, an apple on my head and a bulls-eye taped square over the softest part of my heart.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

I have been playing, small. I own this, I am not a victim, I am in charge of my own actions and reactions. Everything that has been said is no worse than the ugliest and angriest things that I have ever thought about myself. I have spent months trying to make myself very, very tiny, hoping that I could crawl back behind the bushes where I wouldn't be noticed. And when I couldn't, I only sucked in more, got quieter, curled up in a ball in a dark corner and held my breath.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people will not feel insecure around you.

I let myself believe, I turned cruelty into truth. It's seeped into every thought I have about myself. Friday morning, when I was done warming up at master's and still alone in my lane, instead of just thinking, "Wow, everyone sure is running late this morning," I beat myself up with thoughts of "No one wants to swim with you because you are wearing ear plugs. A ridiculous bathing suit. Because you are too slow, because you can't keep up, because you won't make the intervals, because you just aren't fun to be around." It didn't even occur to me how awful I was treating myself. The same thing happens, in my brain, if someone bails on plans I thought we had. It can't be because my friend is an idiot or a flake, it has to be because I'm not worthy of friendship. If a group rolls out to ride without me and I had no idea it was going on, it must be because everyone tip-toed around to leave without me, not because boys are generally too dumb to understand the concept of "invite." It's a lot of what was behind my running meltdown from a few weeks ago. It's why I've barely been blogging, I'm been so afraid to put any thoughts out there just in case someone feels the need, yet again, to knock me on my ass. Because I have nothing to say that I think is worthwhile. I've been shrinking.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.

And I'm not sure why it's today, but that stops. Now. That bullshit is over. I am meant to shine.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

I have spent so much time making sure that I point out my imperfections to the world. I constantly feel the need to emphasize over and over that I know how flawed I am. I am short. I am never going to be the fastest in the water, on the bike, or in the run shoes. NEVER. I am awkward. I have no filter at all. I can never seem to buy jeans that are the right length and don't let my crack hang out the back and are exactly the right color. I don't make small mistakes, I make enormous, embarrassing, eeks-face mistakes. I can dead-lift my own body weight but continue to horrify centuries of women by asking men to pick up the heavy things for me so I don't break a nail. I will always put two spaces after a sentence. I have big hips and mismatched feet and I massively over-share and can't ever just send only one text message and let's not even talk about what happens when I drink too much and, my God, have you met me? So awkward.

It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.

But I am also pretty fucking fabulous. I'm going to own that. I'm saying, out loud, here in writing, that I am awesome. And even writing it - even thinking it - makes me want to follow it immediately with a slam, makes me want to qualify it with a negative. Not gonna do it. I have gigantic blue eyes and a fantastic ass. You can park your bike in it, I'm still proud. And I am loud. Not just noisy or bubbly but straight-up loud. I am passionate; madly, deeply, explosively so. I can quote every line of Ghostbusters, Office Space, Caddyshack, and Spaceballs. I rock the hell out of a karaoke microphone. You will never have as much fun riding your bike as you will with me sucking off your wheel. You will never eat as well as when I drag you into my house and force-feed you things that I have cooked. I am completely uncoordinated but shake my groove thang and dance it out anyway. I have an overwhelming sense of fairness. I HAVE NO FILTER AT ALL. My Unreal Tournament skill level was "Godlike." There are things that I do that I am GOOD at. I am a good coach, I am a good wife, I would never steal paper from the work office closet. I am fiercely loyal once I have decided that you are my friend, although I will give you so much shit that you won't be sure for a while if you have enough ego to be mine.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

And I want to be a better person. I am working towards it, I am only 32 years old. Best-case scenario, I've got 70 more years of putting my foot in my mouth and winking at strangers and tripping on invisible shoelaces and doing all the things that I do that make me human. Not a failure, not worthless, not inadequate, not small. Human. I am 32 years old, I am going to sing at the top of my lungs, I am going to ruin cookies by not measuring any ingredients and I am going to wear the fuck out of that hot pink jacket.

-Marianne Williamson

oh the places you'll go

2013-03-02T00:28:00.000-05:00

I feel the desire to yap about my life, even if no one really cares but me. The heart and soul of blogging, indeed.

I went to California, did I mention that?

It was a while ago now, for vaguely workish reasons, and for some coachish reasons, and also to do mile repeats at sea level (THE AIR IS SO BIG)(nope, still not adjusted) with Katie my soul sister who runs almost exactly twice as fast as I do and can drink twice as much tequila as I can. But now that I know this pool exists, I'm already planning a return visit.

I'm not sure when I became such a whore for steamy outdoor swimming pools, but it got me from DC all the way to Boulder, and if I had know about the one in Santa Monica, well, we might have just kept on driving. I guess I'll just have to keep watching the sun rise from this one here, instead.

I know I mentioned at some point that I finally found a tiny scoop of MTFU and went to masters. I'm having a good time, I've met some groovy people that call me wonder woman (because of my supergirl suit, not because of my prowess in the water, obviously) and don't make me lead the lane all that often. It might be making me faster, I don't really know because I barely look at the clock especially when I'm not in charge of when we leave, but it gets my ass out of bed at 5:00am twice a week and I laugh. A lot.

At some point my parents came to visit.

I think they had actually purchased plane tickets to come out here before we even had a house to live in, but it was a blast having them here for a while (I think we're pretending to ski but I honestly have no idea what is going on)(where did you THINK I got it from?).

We did a little hiking and a little driving (and a LOT of eating). At some point I realized that the twisty steep road that my dad was driving up, so quickly that we all wanted to barf, was the ride that the work people did fairly regularly. On their bicycles. And it only took another month before I managed to drag my mismatched neon spandex-clad bicycle backside up that same climb. I don't think I cussed at the hill even one time. (For the record, I am wearing a matching kit under my many obnoxious layers).

The first few outdoor rides after a lot of trainer time are always a wild overstimulating circus of remembering how to balance and steer and that you can't stop pedaling to change the channel without falling over. Also, climbing a mountain when it's 42º out is no big deal, but descending several miles requires a full-length down jacket and a personal radiator mounted on the handlebars, neither of which I had in my bento box. But my toes eventually turned pink again, and now that we've had a single cloudy day we can go back to the endless brilliance of perfect sunshine for a while.

My lovely longish run from the other day happened in that kind of weather.

I actually have no idea how far I ran that day, but I went and found an unplowed trail and spent over an hour stomping through mud and calf-deep snow and singing Sugarland and Train and Fun songs at the absolute top of my lungs. (To scare off coyotes, no?)

Amy came to visit. We working on convincing her to transplant out here as well. I don't think it will be hard. I don't miss much about DC, but I miss my girlfriends a hell of a lot. (HINT TO THE REST: COME VISIT K THANKS).

A few months have gone by, already, in 2013, in case you haven't looked at a calendar for a while. As of a few days ago, we've been in our house two months.

Life is starting to make sense again.

Austin was the only thing I had planned - like really planned, buying plane tickets and all - thing being race-related event - other than IMLP - great grief that's a lot of hyphens, maybe I should fix them - out for this year. I made a big map back in November with Sonja about all the races I wanted to do this year, and now I've changed my mind. And it's okay that I've changed my mind (thank goodness I didn't register for any)(yes, I wear a lot of pink and this hoodie in particular almost every day, who cares).

The poet wants to run the Chicago Marathon, it's his dream, so that's going to happen and he managed to register in the midst of the everyone-losing-their-goddamn-mind madness. We're going back to visit family in upstate NY in a few months and maybe do a little running while we're there. I've planned out a couple of training weekends that I am really excited about, more because of the people I'm going to spend time with and the places I will go and visit on my bicycle and the fun I will have and less because of the OMG how fast I will run at what HR and how far and how many calories and JUST NEVER MIND ALREADY. And people are stacking up our weekends with visits here. Which I love, and not just because we spend our time in the historical institutions of Colorado.

I don't know that I want a theme, or a word or a thought or a mantra or anything for this year. I've been thinking about getting a second tattoo for several months now but that's a story for another day, and has really nothing to do with any of this except it involves words. I said at the beginning of the year that I needed to find my happy life again. I have good days and bad days, like anyone I have ups and downs. I think that I thought (follow that?) for a while that my life needed to be solemn and thoughtful, like everything needed to matter and I needed to stop being so ridiculous all the time. But now, today, I just want to laugh. I want to stamp a big, red, drippy "WHY SO SERIOUS?" stamp on the face of that Katie. It doesn't mean I want to be irresponsible, it doesn't mean I don't want to get shit done, but for pete's sake it doesn't need to be nuclear physics with a frowny face on either. So I think I'm figuring it out, I think I'm headed in the right direction, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to be just fine.

snow puppies

2013-02-25T11:28:00.002-05:00

So, nobody blow my cover with the poet, but I'm actually thrilled that we live somewhere that gets regular and (what I would consider) significant snow. Or maybe just significantly more snow than we got in DC, "snowmageddon" events aside.

The night that we moved in, it was snowing. Not heavily, and it only left a dusting on the ground, but snowing indeed. Since then, we've had a couple of days where we've gotten an inch or two of snow, and this weekend we got a nice dump of it.

We had Graham home for about two weeks when that big snowstorm hit DC. I think he remembers it.

Molly and Sofie haven't really experienced much snow. Molly is a pretty princess who does not like to go outside when it is cold, raining, has recently rained, might possible rain, or if the sun goes behind a cloud.

Sofie is generally just scared of everything.

When we woke up yesterday morning and saw how much was coming down, we took them out for a very short and windy walk in it (mostly in hopes that they would stop being ticking time bombs of poop).

They tore up and down the sidewalk, wrestled and rolled around and generally wore themselves out very quickly. (And yes, our plan was successful).

My run was not quite as successful, however. I headed up the street and turned left on the trail, straight into the ridiculous wind. After spending a minute or so running in place while being attacked with snow bullets, eyes squeezed shut, I reluctantly decided to shut it down. I'll eat more Wheaties and try again next time.

But the snow has moved on, the wind has died today, and today I'll head out for a lovely long run in the bright sunshine. 12º and 12ish inches of snow?

I'm still so happy to be here.

Austin Half Marathon: race report

2013-02-19T20:20:00.002-05:00

I didn't want to run a half marathon this year.

I've lost a bit of my taste for racing, somewhere. I've learned that I would prefer training block after training block after training block, and I don't like interrupting that with the taper/race/recovery mess that comes along with race day. But I also have learned that I need to be doing things that get me out of my comfort zone (sigh), so a half marathon it was.

By this point in my life, I've run a fistful of half marathons, about half of them off the bike. And almost without exception, I've lined up with something nagging - maybe I'm still getting over a cold, maybe I had a devastating back injury and haven't run in two weeks, maybe this wahh, maybe that wahh. If I had lined up for the marathon like I had originally planned, I would have been in that situation. Because bouncing back from the mess my life was all fall to a marathon the second week of February, that would have left something nagging. But when I stepped to the line Sunday morning, my mind was empty, calm, clear. Peaceful.

I didn't have any time goals going in, not even secret "scary goals" in the back of my head. I had process goals, and basing my day around execution and not around the final number, that is starting to work well for me. I had no idea what my overall time was until after I passed the mile 12 marker, when I flipped my watch screen over for a split second, and then flipped it back. I had a pretty good idea of what I was going to run on Sunday, and that's what I ran. I don't believe in race day magic, not really, not anymore. With a few exceptions, I had a solid six or seven week block of training going into this race, and I'm not surprised, shocked, impressed, horrified, or enthralled with the race I had. I am simply, quietly, pleased.

Part of that is MAF training, I think. Before I trained by MAF, I swung back and forth between crazy leaps of improvement and devastating set-backs due to injury, back and forth, over and over. Now I don't make those swings anymore, I'm off that roller-coaster. Instead, I move forward slowly and steadily, I am laying bricks in the foundation of my house. Then suddenly it's been over a year since I've been injured, suddenly I'm in the longest stretch of time I've ever been in, since I started running in 1999, without an atom bomb of injury being dropped on my training. Part of it is my Sonja, for sure, we all know that, and part of it, this time around, is working through a training cycle with these ladies. They are rock stars and I'm lucky to have found them here in Boulder (well, they were already here, but now I'm here too).

So, the race. I forgot to turn off auto-lap before the race started, and for some reason thought it was a good idea to lap at mile markers anyway, so my data is a disaster of messed-up splits. I don't really care. The race took a few splits here and there with timing mats, so I know what it looks like I did on paper, but the truth it, I don't really care about that either. I'm not sure I'm interested in narrating the day with splits and times and hills and nutrition and hydration and all of those things, not this time. For the better part of the race, my mind was blank, an empty space (insert joke about it being empty all the time here; go ahead, walk through the door, I opened it for you). I ran 10-11 miles of the race without music, and only put in the earbuds near the end with the hope that it would let me hurt a little harder. It didn't. The course was described as hilly and challenging. It was. I got down two gels and a bunch of water at some point between the start and finish. My form collapsed into a nightmareish mess in the later miles. That all happened. But those details just aren't interesting to me right now.

I will tell you, I will tell anyone, openly and honestly, that what holds me back in racing is my mind. More precisely, my fear of hurting on the run. I used to be afraid of race-day blowups, and I'm past that, or maybe I'm not and it's the same thing as it was, just wearing different pants. I am afraid to hurt, I am afraid of what it looks like out there on the edge, and facing it is the only way I'm ever going to get the F over it. It's fascinating to me that I'm not really afraid of it in the water, and it's been a while since I've had a block with a lot of cycling in it but I'm pretty sure it doesn't show up there as loudly as it does on the run. The voice in my head, the one that tells me it's okay to slow down, to walk, to ease up, the weenie that hates to go ouch, that voice didn't pipe up Sunday morning. That voice, along with all the other voices in my crazy little brain, was silent.

So I lined up, and I ran, and I hurt myself a little bit harder than I've ever managed to do so in the past. That's progress. But is there still room for growth, do I still have the ability to hurt myself even harder? Absolutely. I knew it was true before I looked at my data, and I know it's true now.

I said a long time ago, somewhere, that I'm not so much concerned with numbers this year. Seven weeks in, I'm glad that is still true. I couldn't even tell you what my official finishing time was on Sunday. What I will tell you is that training is continuing to be a vehicle for change in my life. And not because of how much I ran on which day for how fast, not because how many hours I rode at how many watts, not because of any of that. The change is walking down the road of learning about myself, about constantly trying to do things better, to discard the noise and trash and stay true to the work that needs to be done. To talk less, to do more. Last month I ran a ten miler. I executed it like I was supposed to, I reached as far as I could reach on that day with those legs. I was relatively unconcerned that I squeaked out a PR. This weekend I ran a half marathon. I executed it well; as Sonja keeps telling me, I went looking for the floor of my well. I found it, I dug out a few shovelfuls of dirt and now my well is a tiny bit deeper. It doesn't much matter to me right now that I took another handful of minutes off another PR - what matters is that when I went out and stumbled into the pain, I didn't give into it. Instead I said hello, I made friends with it, I ran 13.1 miles straight through it without any drama or problems or disruptions, and then I was done with it. The next time I go out looking for it, I'll be a little bit less afraid and I'll be able to reach a little higher. But for now, I am at peace. I am simply, pleased. I said it two years ago after my first half marathon, and I'll say it again now because it continues to resonate with me.

Life's this game of inches.

my life as a blogger is complete

2013-02-11T11:57:00.003-05:00

A lot of someones sent me this late last night. Apparently someone over at the meme factory found this picture and cheezburger'd it up.

It's somewhat remarkable that this picture does not largely feature my ass, based on the volume of those photos floating around. Also, as many have commented, surely we can come up with a better meme than THAT. (Original meme posted here, photo stolen from here).

I don't know what's wrong with me

2013-02-06T12:56:00.000-05:00

That phrase has been in my post-workout notification comments at least three times in the past few weeks. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

"I'm a mess."

Training isn't going poorly. In fact, training is going far better than I would expect for January (well, now February). I'm really not a fan of doing comparisons, especially to myself, but if I think about how I was running in January of last year and how I'm running now, it's better. Not a lot better, I'm not suddenly running sub-7s at MAF, but slightly better. A noticeable amount of better. Especially when I consider the double-slammer of recovering from pneumonia (lungs are clear, most days I don't need a shot from the inhaler) and moving a mile up (still see black spots if I get out of bed too quickly but I don't have to breathe every stroke AND off the wall in the pool anymore). I know I'm not adjusted to the altitude yet - the common consensus is that it takes somewhere between six weeks and two years to adjust fully - but when I bother to look at my pace at all, it's not nearly as horrifying as I would expect based on the past few months of my life. And we won't even mention the twelve pounds I gained in the off-season.

So, that said, I don't know why I keep falling apart.

I'm certainly not going to pretend to be perfect, and that means talking about the hot mess just like I talk about my triumphs. It started a few weeks ago, I headed out for a tempo-ish run, and for some reason, while I was warming up, just felt incredibly blue. Like tearing up, water in the eyeballs blue. And those of you that know me, know that I am 98% on the T scale. I barely have feelings at all, I hate it when people are emotional, and I certainly can't deal with it when it's myself.

I finished my run - which was fine, even running up a slight hill into the wind I managed to hit the various gibberish I was supposed to hit - and then trudged home like someone just told me Santa actually isn't real. Emotional gak, coming up and out of me, and I have no idea why or what to do with it or - most importantly - how to make it GO AWAY AND LEAVE ME ALONE.

Sonja responded to my WTF workout notes by dumping all the intensity out of my sessions for a while to give me a chance to figure out my shit (which I was cranky about but turned out to be exactly what I needed, as usual). And I had the happiest week, I splish-splashed through masters (yes, I went; yes, I am embarrassed that I was scared of it for so long; no, I don't care if you make fun of me for being scared), spun my easy wheels and chitchatted through social runs with my watch stuffed in my pocket. I spent all week preparing for my last long & hard run before Austin, really preparing my brain to knock the stuffing out of it. Hopefully your sense of foreboding has kicked in by now.

It was a disaster, the whole day was a disaster. I'm over it now, I'm trying to figure it out and I'm certainly not letting it hang over me, but it was a mess. I met my good training buddy on a new (to me) trail in north Boulder, and we thought it was going to be flat (we were specifically instructed to find flat) and it turned out to be a steep rocky hilly mountainous mess. A trail that I would love to run another time, when I can be happy in the sunshine, but not a good one when I have a run that is supposed to descend starting thirty minutes in.

After about fifteen minutes of running, I turned around and headed back down the rocks to look and see if I could find flat trail, and I couldn't. I found a short stretch of flattish terrain and headed off that way, only for it to dead-end about 1/2 a mile later in someone's backyard. And I stopped. In the middle of the trail, frustrated and pissed off. I turned off my watch and walked back to my car with tears leaking out of my head like a crazy person. I couldn't even convince my legs to jog up the little trail when I got cold, I was just done.

I drove home, I got in bed, I was mad some more, I ate crap, I cried mad little tears, I did all the things you aren't supposed to do (all the things I would never tell my own athletes to do but that is a discussion for another post), I punished myself HARD for being such a failure.

What a mess, eh?

The thing that I can't figure out, is that training is actually going well. I don't feel like I should be doing "better" anywhere or like I am failing, I feel like I am doing really just fine, I am seeing progress across at least two sports, month to month, year to year. Which means the problem isn't with my training, it's with my big fat stupid brain. I've been trying so hard to be more detached about my running, and when things chug along, it goes pretty well. But the problem - according to my master therapist - is not the getting mad part. It's the getting mad AT the getting mad. We had a long chat on Monday and I'm still not exactly sure I understand what is wrong or how to fix it, but I'm starting with awareness, only because "ignore it and hope it goes away" was a pretty massive failure.

I've dealt with mental crap before. It was almost a year ago when I talked about how I was completely afraid to fail, how it created one mental blow-up after another, race day after race day. And then earlier this year, even, when I talked about how I felt guilty and undeserving of the very positive changes that have happened in my life over the past few months. The key, or one of the many many many keys, or maybe just a place to start, is to stop punishing myself. For things that have happened in the past, for mistakes I have made, for feelings that I am feeling. Every time something good happens, I feel the need to punish myself, because who am I to be lucky and happy? Who am I to accept health and generosity and love from others? And every time something bad happens, I feel the need to punish myself because it's what I deserve. How about that for a load of psychological crap on a random Tuesday morning in February?

I did get the run done, by the way. I got up before sunrise on Monday morning and headed to a flatter terrain'd trail, alone and in the quiet of the morning. The run wasn't perfect. The trail ended at a road about 2 miles before I needed it to end, so I did a bunch of crazy out-and-backs in the middle to make up the distance. All the crap I ate on Sunday came rushing down with a vengeance, and I ended up leaping into the bushes/behind a tree/next to a bridge at least a half-dozen times in the middle of harder sections of running (sacrificed both gloves and a sock). And the last ten minutes, where I was supposed to be really flying, I took off after hitting the lap button FAR too fast and burned the last little match I had, so I didn't hit my numbers. None of that matters. I'm pretty sure what matters is that I got it done, I've let it go, and I'm trying to figure my way forward, both in AND out of the run shoes.

my puppies live here now, too

2013-01-28T11:58:00.002-05:00

In general, puppy life is pretty sweet. It's a constant rotation of love, eating, pooping, and sleeping, with lots of emphasis on the sleeping. Ours have been adapting pretty well to life a mile high.

I've gotten to take Molly running a few times, and she does really well off-leash. She loves to tear ahead of me and dig around in the bushes, but she never gets too far and she always comes bounding back.

We took all three on a long walk yesterday, on a trail where cattle roam pretty freely back and forth. I run there quite a bit, and I've had to stop a few times to get around a cow in the middle of the running path.

Molly in particular was really curious about the cows, and kept running up to one in particular and barking at him. But as soon as he took a step towards her, she freaked out.

Graham had no idea what to do, and just stood about fifteen feet away, growling and barking his fool head off until we moved along.

So in general, puppy life is good. They've been drinking a lot more water and Sofie has cracked pads on her foot that we've been treating with lotion (imagine how fun THAT is), but I like to think that they are happy here.

Frosty's Frozen Ten Miler: race report

2013-01-21T21:56:00.002-05:00

I've been trying to find a way to talk about the running I've been doing over the past month, what's been going on as I've eased back into training after healing from pneumonia, and I just feel stuck. Calling this a race report seems like cheating, but there was a bib on my shorts and a chip on my shoes, so here we go.

I planned to run a marathon this spring, but that isn't in the plan for me anymore. By the time we were done moving and I was done coughing my brains out, there just wasn't enough time to build to it, and half-assing a marathon for a medal and a pair of extremely sore and unprepared legs isn't on my list of things that seem either fun or smart. So I'll drop to the half, I'll run a marathon later this year, and I won't lose even a blink of sleep over it.

Rebuilding my fitness from what I thought was zero has been a vaguely interesting process. I had a couple of good weeks of training at the beginning of December after a long few months of inconsistency, but then ended up taking almost two more weeks off to let my lungs knit back together. So when I strapped my heart rate monitor on just under a month ago to head out for a run, it felt like I was starting from scratch again. My first run - one that had me thrilled at how good it felt until I turned around to come home and realized I had been running downhill - was certainly one of the slowest I've done. And I remember last year at this time, when I was starting to train by MAF for the very first time. This run would have made me grumpy and frustrated. I distinctly remember coming in my front door and whipping my heart rate strap off and across the floor. This year, it just doesn't bother me anymore.

Part of the reason is because I've been through this. I've learned the hard way that holding myself accountable to keeping my heart rate low is what will help me build my fitness the fastest. Cheating and running over my cap - even by 2 or 3 or 4 beats - is only pushing back the day when I have to hurt myself, just a little, to get my heart rate high enough to hit MAF. That's a pretty spectacular feeling, and I went hunting for it. This time around, it didn't take quite as long. A couple of runs filled with walking turned into a couple of runs trotting in the 12s, which dropped into the 11s and then I could finally chat with my friends without shoving my heart rate up and over. Finally, I think it was about a week ago where I warmed up, lapped my watch, and had to haul what I consider some pretty serious ass to get my heart rate up to where I wanted it for four miles at MAF. It's dark magic.

So I'm making my way back. A few weeks ago, my Boulder pony training buddies went out and looked for a race to prep for the marathon that they are still running (suckers) and stumbled onto this ten miler. As it turned out, they both got approved for the five miler/ten miler race day double, but I only got the stamp of approval for the ten miler, and I had to run the vast majority of it as a MAF test.

I've done this before, actually last spring, when I ran the Cherry Blossom ten miler as a MAF test. I "tapered" for that race by doing a four hour ride and an hour swim the day before, and this time was no different. On Friday, I headed out with these guys:

For an "easy ride" that ended up looking like this:

Which isn't always a bad thing, but I was not-so-secretly relieved to only have to run ten miles at MAF on Saturday morning and not race my ass off.

Amy was in town visiting for the weekend and didn't want to race, but took the opportunity of me racing to run in the other direction on the trail to get her long run done while I MAF'd. I warmed up a little, mostly by walking back and forth to the car to change clothes a dozen times, but since I was using the first two miles of the race as an additional warm-up, I didn't really stress about it. As we were standing around chatting in the minutes before the start, I accidentally ate an entire pack of those PowerBar squishy gel things without really noticing, so my stomach was a little grumbly for the first few miles but at least I didn't have to worry about fuel.

Mo and I started together, and we spent the first two miles being chatty and getting loose, nice and easy. When we saw the second mile marker, I put my headphones in and started working my way up to MAF. She's got a ton more fitness than me (rude), so she slowly pulled ahead while I picked up the pace from behind. The race course itself was pretty excellent - it was mostly on a concrete trail next to a little stream (river?), and the day was gorgeous and sunny.

MAF tests, in general, are pretty unremarkable. My heart rate stayed steady except for the 180º turn-around of the out-and-back, where it dropped three beats for about ten seconds. It also dropped a bit at the aid station at mile 7.5 where I slowed to suck down four cups of water because I felt ridiculously hot and thirsty (Colorado in January, people, it's a fabulous thing). But other than that, it held smooth and steady for six solid miles. At mile eight, I was supposed to ditch MAF and haul ass. I dug in a little bit and prayed for my gel to give me a kick in the ass, but as it turns out, 3-4 weeks of rebuilding doesn't produce a whole lot of speed after eight miles. So I held it as far above MAF as I could (about four beats, sigh) straight into the finish, and then I was done. (Stolen shot of my form, which is both constantly improving and endlessly fascinating only to me).

Last spring's ten-miler-done-as-a-MAF-test produced a PR, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when this one did as well, but in all honesty, it's only a PR because I've never really raced the distance. One of these days I'll get around to it, I suppose, or maybe I'll just keep paying to wear a bib for MAF tests.

Either way, it was a gorgeous day, I ran ten miles that didn't suck and then I ate brunch with lots of old and new friends. Running is going well. Training is going well. It's not particularly exciting. It's getting up every day and getting the work done, to the best of my ability. Some days it's fun with training buddies or co-workers, some days it feels a little bit like work, some days it's in the gorgeous outdoor pool or on the trail with a cow chewing grass in my ear, and some days it's on the trainer in a boring room by myself.

But a lot of the time, especially in the winter, that's what endurance training is. It's not a CRUSH BALLS RAWR, it's not sparkly highs and lows, it's not thrashing yourself until you puke. And I think that's why I'm not really interested in talking about it right now. I'm more interested in getting out there, enjoying it in the moment, being happy, and then moving right along.

a Graham update

2013-01-14T12:09:00.000-05:00

It's been about six months since Graham was in the hospital, and I wanted to check in with an update on how he's doing.

The overall answer is, pretty good. He's still at the lean end of what a healthy weight is, despite the fact that we're feeding him more than we used to. The vet thinks that because he lost so much intestine, his body can't hang onto as many nutrients. So his morning and evening meals are a little bit larger, and he gets a little bit of peanut butter as a treat most days. He isn't technically underweight, but he's still about 5lbs less than he used to be.

He isn't allowed to run, and that's sad but a fact of life. I know that he misses it, because his eyes and ears perk up when we take the girls out. The vet told us that he's welcome to run around in the backyard and exercise at the dog park, but extended runs we should probably avoid. That's partially because of how easily he could become dehydrated, and partially because he's having enough trouble hanging onto weight. So he gets to play and wrestle in the backyard, but the days of taking him out for 2-4 miles are over. His 5K PR stands where it is. I wish I could explain to him why that is, but without a frontal cortex, he'll never understand.

He is extremely spoiled, and I'm okay with that. He gets to climb up on the bed and snuggle with me after the poet leaves in the morning while the girls go back in their houses. He comes to work with me while the other two stay home. He gets a little bit of extra love, because at least once a day I look at him and remember how close we came to losing him. That doesn't mean the girls are ignored or deprived - hardly - but Graham will always be special. We fought for him, and he fought for all of us.

As far as the help we received, we haven't forgotten. It has changed our lives, and that's not an exaggeration. Before all of this, before I lost my job and we emptied our savings to the IRS and everything that happened to devastate us, we were very financially focused on paying down debt. I volunteered my time to the golden retriever rescue, but our funds were all being poured into trying to kill off our student loans. And that's just not true anymore. It took us until late August to pay off the debt that we had accumulated over the summer, and as soon as we had paid off that debt, we started paying it forward as we had promised. Every month, every paycheck, a little bit would go into rebuilding our savings account from zero, but another chunk would be donated. When our house in DC sold, we were able to make a couple of significant donations from the money that we made there.

We haven't quite reached the point where we've donated the same amount of money that was donated to us to help Graham, but we're close. I talked several months ago about selling my horn, and I'm hoping that the person that is testing it out right now purchases it. If so, we will be able to donate yet again, above and beyond what we have promised. Both of us have been working two jobs for several months now, and that is a big part of why we have been able to make these things happen so quickly.

But the poet and I have discussed this, about what happens when we have paid all the money back or forward. And we've decided that it's not going to stop there. We do still have student loans that we are working on paying down, but it's more important to us to donate monthly, to remember and be grateful, than it is to pay those off as quickly as possible. Some people might call this stupid or irresponsible. I believe it is necessary. We've decided that we'll continue donating until we've matched the total amount of money that was spent on his surgeries - an amount that is approximately four times as much as what was donated. And we probably won't even stop there, but that's where we are headed next.

Graham getting sick has changed our lives, in a real and permanent way. We talked about it this weekend. Before all this happened, it just wouldn't have occurred to us to donate in this way. Maybe in part because we are selfish white people trying to pay down our expensive college educations, but I think it's also because we hadn't been affected by tragedy like this before. And once affected, we will never be the same. Every time I see something somewhere about a hurt animal or a rescue foundation or everyone someone raising money to fight actual human cancer, I try and send money, even if it's only $10 or $20. Because someone did that for us, people reached into their hearts to save a member of MY family, and I know how much even the little donations help. So many times since this has happened, I've heard someone say, "But it's only a dog." I know that. I know he is only a dog, and that there are far more important problems going on in this planet than keeping a puppy alive. But he's also a member of my family. He is probably the only baby I will ever have. He saved MY life when he was 7 weeks old, and he didn't even know it, and I'll be damned if I won't fight for his.

wordless friday: peace

2013-01-11T12:41:00.001-05:00

I don't have words right now, so this may very well be the most boring update I have ever posted. I have nothing that I feel the need or desire to discuss, to snark about, to worry about. Maybe I will once training ramps up a bit more, but right now my life is calm. It's easier, here. I said it the first day I arrived: there is peace here. I wake up - early, because I'm still on east coast time - in the morning and go train before heading to work.

Most days I bring Graham with me. He sleeps peacefully under my desk. If I'm going to train at lunch, sometimes I bring Molly instead, and that girl loves to run, to get muddy and worn out.

My job is good, I'm happy here. When my day is done, it's done. I head home to our little house, still covered in unpacked boxes and unhung pictures, and spend time with my family.

I cook things, we eat things, we do laundry and build bookshelves and go to bed early. My life is boring right now.

And I couldn't be happier.

you can't schedule these things

2013-01-07T22:51:00.000-05:00

So, waaaaaaaaay back in December while I was home and at sea level and had enough red blood cells, I think I had a bit of a breakthrough. Only a tiny one, but then I got sick and my life was crazy bananas for a while and I haven’t really even had time to sit down and try to process it. And no one has breakthroughs in December, those should be scheduled for March when you actually might be able to make it useful.

I stopped talking about specifics of training here on the blog such a long time ago, because for the most part, the numbers don’t matter. And it (sometimes) irritates me when other people spend so much time focusing on the numbers, so I didn’t walk to talk about this because I felt like I was being a hypocrite but something happened in the water and oh for pete's sake just type already.

It was a boring Thursday afternoon (it was a dark and stormy night...). I had a swim workout I’ve seen a few times before, broken 250s. (Sorry, Sonja, if I am giving away state secrets here). 100 fast, 75 cruise, 50 HARD, 25 easy. Main set, ten times through. When I’ve done it before, I don’t usually pay attention to the clock, I just work on effort and make sure that my 250 send-offs are consistent. And the thing that has been happening in the pool lately, well, in all my workouts lately, is that I’m coasting. I’m cruising, I’m just getting by, and that is probably why I’m afraid of going to master’s swim because then someone will beat my little ass with a hammer called OUCH. So anyway, the set is broken, the 100s and the 75s are on 1:35, the 50s are on :55 and the 25 slash the whole broken 250 is on 5:00 to make it easy. I figure in my head that I’ll aim for 1:30 pace on the 100s and slightly faster on the 50s because ehhhh, I’m out of shape I’ve just gotten back into training, I think the last time I did this the 100s were on 1:40 blah blah blah. BLAH. I work through the warm-up, wait for the (digital, thank god) clock to grab a double zero and I go. First 100 feels smooth and only a little hard, and I pop up and see that it was a 1:25. And the immediate thought in my head is, well, NOW you’re screwed.

So I cruise through the 75, smash myself on the 50, float through the 25. And the thing that I like about this set is that there isn’t a lot of time to think except after the 25. I’m telling myself, back off, you have nine more of these suckers to go and YOU ARE OUT OF SHAPE and 1:25 pace is going to be 1:34 touch-and-go on the last four if you aren’t careful. I rest, clear my goggles, push off and go. 1:25. FFFFFF.

I think, out loud in my head, the way you do when you're under water. I’ve been having fun these past few weeks swimming, being at altitude plus taking five weeks off from the pool means that I’ve taken all the clock pressure off myself, plus since I’ve only been a swimmer for a few years I never really put that much pressure ON my swimming anyhow. Sonja and I talked about it last spring, if I have a bad day in the pool I don’t give a crap, but shovel me up a bad run and I’m pissing and moaning and having a cow about it. And if only I could detach from running like I do with swimming, maybe I might be able to actually make some progress or at least stop making both of us crazy with it.

So, sometimes it’s good to be detached, but I think it’s turning into me being generally lazy in the pool, because I worked so hard last winter and made so much progress and I feel like I’ve been stuck on a plateau even since so why bother trying to smash through? (The paradox of the off-season athlete). But these 1:25s scare me, and only one more rolls by before my brain starts in with the excuses, with the cop-outs. It’s starting to hurt, why don’t you just throw on some paddles, or take an extra minute of rest after the fifth one, actually you are running late so maybe just do eight instead of ten and then swim an easy 500 and get out, why the crap are you swimming in the 1:20s in December anyway, maybe just ease off the effort, no one is standing on the deck with the stopwatch, it’s the holidays, go eat some more cookies. And after another 1:25 rolls by and it’s really starting to hurt, I realize that this is the voice that I need to face. So instead of backing off, I grit my teeth and dig into the water, I am throwing it backwards away from me. #4, 1:25. #5, 1:26, and that pisses me off so much, that I backed off for one second, that I decide that I’m going to hold the 50s at :40 and descend the 100s for the back half of the set.

I have never heard so much screaming, inside my head, in my life. I suppose this makes me sound crazy, but it was ugly and I couldn’t escape it. I couldn’t distract myself with music or chatter or trees or birds or a movie like I can on the bike or run, I had nothing but my brain and the black line and fear. And how much my muscles hurt to swim hard was nothing compared to the pain of standing up to my stupid December self and screaming, no, I will NOT back down. 1:26. The 50 is burning, I need more rest. 1:25. Come on, descend, goddammit. 1:24. 1:23. 1:21. And when I finally pushed off the wall and into the cool-down, there was nothing but silence.

What I sat down to write about, really, was a race report on the meet I did this weekend, and how all I can think of when I look at the times (500: 7:28, 200: 2:49, 100: 1:16) is ugh, and how the excuses want to pile up inside my head. Altitude pneumonia 6 extra lbs time off blah blah blah. BLAH. But the fact of the matter is, this is where I am, right now, today. This is the body and the set of circumstances that I have to work with, right now. I can roll those excuses around in my head over and over and keep letting myself off the hook during hard workouts, or I can grit my teeth and throw water. Those are my choices and those are the ONLY choices I have.

So I did say a little bit of ugh, just a little, maybe even a few times because I'm never going to be perfect, but then I looked for the work. That meant cooling down properly instead of stomping into the locker room, getting into warm clothes and eating a recovery meal that actually had protein in it and wasn't made up of cupcakes and then sending a video of my scary off-season-weight'd self off to some of the biggest swimming brain trusts I know. And some I didn't really know but offered to help anyway. This is why I love this community. These people, the ones that mostly exist on my computer screen, watched my wriggly little booter go up and down the lane and then sent me videos of my video and drills and sets and links and more videos and I am eating it up, I am soaking up every second and it's changing my time in the water. I'm more focused on what I'm doing, even when I'm tired and it all goes to hell, I'm still thinking, reaching pushing digging rolling, trying to put the pieces together, trying to find the fitness I have lost. The fitness I have never had.

So yup, I've been coasting, these past six months or so. I've been just getting by, but no more, I've been letting myself off the hook, I've been okay with just being okay. That's over. I've had enough of being my own mediocre. I am ready for this work, I am ready to settle into the stuff that isn't exciting, it's just work, I am ready for this year. That is the choice I have made.

of course there is a marching band

2013-01-02T09:01:00.002-05:00

I realized recently that I have done a monthly recap post for every month that I’ve had this blog. Which is quite a long time, if anyone is keeping track.

In each of them, I walk through the goals I set - some serious, some silly - at the end of the previous month. Then I discuss the current status of my swim, my bike, and my run - always in order. What follows next is usually a mishmash of discussion about my personal life and what the next month will look like. Then I round up a few goals for the next month and hit publish. Done. Yesterday I started writing my December recap post and thinking about January, and thinking about how I wanted to set it apart from all the 2012 recaps/2013 resolution blog posts, and it just made me feel exhausted. Mentally, exhausted. And I realized, I think, that it’s time to change direction. For good.

I’ve been struggling lately with my life, with the life that we are building here in Colorado. And I’m struggling because it’s good, and I feel like I don’t deserve that. When I found a new job at a great company, and then started working and loved the job and the people and the work, all I could think about is - when will this end? And then the poet found a job and then we found a house, a beautiful little house that was well under what we could afford based on how much we sold our DC house for, a house that will allow us to recover from the financial holocaust of 2012, to build and grow. I have friends and training partners and a new triathlon team here, it’s everything I wanted and I feel at peace. But a little part of me is waiting for the other shoe to drop.

When I lost my job last April, when Graham got sick and my world went insane, those things were horrible. But in some ways they were almost relief. Our happy little marriage had been chugging along and I was waiting for something to go to hell, and when it did, I could relax. Because the wrong turn, the hard and vicious slap, the drop in my stomach that came when the vet walked out of the back and motioned us into an exam room, those were things I expected. That - I felt like I deserved.

I have no idea why I feel this way. I’ve tossed and turned with it in my own head, and I wish I could spin this blog post into an amazing story of discovery and renewal, but I can’t. I don’t have answers.

My whole life, I’ve been a teacher. I started teaching piano lessons to little kids when I was 14 years old. That that turned into a career of teaching high school, of private music lessons and technology-related instruction, of coaching cross country and swimming and now, over the past year or so, coaching my own athletes, pulling all the pieces together to help others move forward. Because that’s all teaching really is, is finding the way to move forward.

And I think that teaching, that coaching, is such a two-way street, I think that often there is more to be learned as a teacher than as a student. I have learned from Sonja a love for my own athletes, for every single one, for the ones who check boxes in perfection and the ones who struggle. I recognize pieces of myself in each one, I triumph when they triumph, I fall when they fall, I am fiercely protective of them. It’s the same way my heart would beat, hard, when the pile of sticky teenagers won the meet or the goddamn clarinet section finally could play measures 37-41 or the marching band - of course there was a marching band - came in second instead of first and my students looked at me, face upturned, for the answer why. And this history of mine means that I always search for a lesson, in any situation. I’m searching now, my face is upturned, I am trying to find my why.

My journey has brought me here. It has been flawed, it has been riddled with mistakes and errors and wrong turns. I have never pretended to be perfect, although I have longed for perfection. I don’t know where 2013 is going to take me, I don’t know the things that I am going to accomplish. I know that I have been hiding, these past few months. Every punch that has landed - and there have been so many - has pushed me further into my shell. After ironman, after Graham, I refused to believe that I had anything great left inside me. It had been emptied out, it had been replaced by fear, by sadness, by self-loathing. Or worse, by acceptance. It’s so easy to look back on the second half of the year and explain away the mediocre performances, the way I just sat back and let it all wash over me. I can remember, time and again on a race course, these feelings, I can pinpoint the moment I gave in. The way I lost all of my will to fight.

So, it’s not because it’s January or because it’s a new year or because we’ve moved to a new state. I’m not going to call anything a fresh start. A clean slate indicates that I’ve wiped the past away, and I think that would be the worst way to move forward. To guarantee that I’ll keep repeating my mistakes, that I will never learn. But it’s time to find my way back. There is a girl inside of me, one that bounces up and down and yells “that’s right, motherfuckers!” in the face of her biggest critics, of her demons and her fears, a girl that lets happiness explode out of her, someone who wants to embrace the joy instead of punishing herself with the mean, the petty, the anger, the rage. Who can say, “You know what, you’re right. I am NOT perfect. But what I AM, is fucking awesome.” That’s where this year needs to begin. That’s what I need to find.

a year in races

2012-12-31T12:03:00.003-05:00

This is always one of my favorite recaps to write.

My year started off by running - and just barely PRing - a four miler on New Year's Eve with an awesome group of girls. This is still one of my favorite races from 2012.

After that race, I hunkered down for quite a few months into training, emerging untapered and with a still-healing calf in March to match my half marathon PR and cheer the poet onto a big marathon PR.

April brought my first 10 miler - another fake PR run at MAF - my very first swim meet, and the first sprint triathlon I had done since my very first. I learned that I had completely forgotten how to hurt on the run (and writing this now, I realize that I still haven't remembered).

May was less fun as I kicked it off by puking my way through 70.3 miles. But later the month brought a confidence-building century and easy-paced open water 5K swim to kick off an awesome training weekend with friends. I still have no idea how there are zero pictures from that weekend.

June was all about ironman. I swam, I biked, I ran, and I finished the day happy.

July brought another swim meet and August had me jumping into a sprint, where I finished both on the podium and by qualifying for AG Nationals as I raced alongside the poet, who was completing his first-ever triathlon (welcome to the dark side).

I was pretty cranky about training the rest of the month, but somehow magically managed to pull a decent day square out of my ass at my September 70.3, PRing each leg for a significant overall PR.

Looking back, I pretty much shut down after that race. Life stress ramped up in a dozen different ways and training took a backseat to all of it. I was completely unprepared to jump into a 5K but did so anyway, and then managed to get two legs into another 70.3 before I decided not to barf my way through another half marathon.

I realized that mentally, I was done at that point in the year and spent some time in deep rest. I ran a 10K watchless and completely for fun with a friend in November, and then alternated getting sick and driving across the country for the rest of the year.

I learned a lot about racing this year, about training and scheduling and balancing it against life. After ironman I was done. My season was over, and by forcing myself back into training all I did was make my fall full of crabby training sessions which turned into half-assed attempts at racing. This year I hope to plan better, race smarter, and realize when it's time to shut things down for a little while.

How were your races in 2012? What does 2013 look like for you?

a year in photos

2012-12-28T12:20:00.003-05:00

I believe that I stole this idea from Liz two years ago, and I enjoyed the recap last year as well. Here you have it, friends and snarkers, 2012 in photos.

January

Sofie joins our family.

February

I tear my calf by being stupid in beautiful new shoes.

March

I face some ugly truths about myself and triathlon.

To add to the confusion, I run a half marathon at MAF.

April

I visit (and fall in love with) Colorado and then get laid off.

May

I curse my way through my last IM training block.

June

Graham gets sick while I complete an ironman.

July

Graham comes home and I return to my usual schtick of complaining about running.

August

I start a new job and struggle with returning to training.

September

I cross the finish line with my puppies, all of us happy and healthy.

October

I quit my job, celebrate a lot of birthdays, and we decide to move to Colorado.

November

I spend three days in a car with three of the greatest friends I will ever have.

December

I fly home, pack everything, and we drive back out. And last night we landed in our new home.

I like the practice of wrapping up a year in photos instead of words. My year has already been laid out in words, archived on the internet forever, and I don't feel the need to repeat myself. But I always enjoy putting this post together, because it's a time where I can sit and reflect on what stands out from the last 12 months. And all I really have to say, is that it's been one hell of a year.

wordless I don't even know

2012-12-27T08:00:00.000-05:00

I don't have the words to adequately discuss what my life is like right now as I've spent the better part of the last 48 hours trapped in a very small space with four-legged creatures that don't brush their teeth nearly as often as they should.

I can no longer remember what logic it was that mapped out this move in such a way that I ended up driving the better part of the way across the country twice, but I will say that whatever idiot came up with this plan is definitely fired.

Especially the part in which we put three extremely hairy dogs in a car with only two doors.

At the point in my off-season detox where I actually have begun to desperately miss fresh vegetables again.

So here's a dump on puppy pictures, my standard blogging cop-out.

I'll be back either tomorrow or next week. First we have to drive another 300+ miles, sign a 30-year deal with a bank, empty my storage bin, and unload my residual crap out of my friend's closet. And that's before I even consider unpacking or what the bill from the chiropractor will look like by early next week after all of this plus sleeping on an air mattress for five nights until our cubes show up with the rest of our junk.

I hope that everyone had a lovely Christmas. We'll be celebrating ours in January so don't be alarmed when you start seeing stockings and a decorated tree in the blurred background of my crabby and often-photographed existence.

merry christmas

2012-12-24T17:47:00.001-05:00

From all of us, Merry Christmas.