Sometimes You're the Windshield

There are moments of time where it all seems to be going your way. It may not all be perfect but there is a definite theme of "yeah, it's all good" weaving through everything you do. And then it happens, just when nature decides you've taken this easy ride for granted a hairpin turn is thrown in your path and you just happen to be speeding.

That hairpin turn was today for me.

My knee pain is back again.

My knee pain showed up last April when I was in Seattle for a girl's weekend and Mariners game. I was out for my long run around beautiful Lake Union when it hit at about mile 7. A sharp, precise pain located just underneath the bottom left area of my right patella. I tried to run through it but the pain was so intense I just couldn't continue, I had to walk the three miles or so back to my hotel room in my own silent misery and pain. Once I got back home I saw the orthopedist, he claimed he couldn't see anything "wrong" with the knee, just that the way my knee came from the factory was a bit weird because it didn't track properly. He prescribed physical therapy and said that should do the trick.

The first PT I saw was a nice girl fresh out of college, that should have set off the warning bells. I saw her twice a week for the next month and a half with no real improvement to speak of. I was on a strict no running regime. Needless to say I was frustrated. I had my half Ironman the second week of June and I had to be "fixed" by then, I just had to be.

Any guesses as to if I was fixed or not? Nobody? None? Really? Okay, fine, party poopers.

I wasn't fixed. I had to walk the entire 13.1 miles. The funny part is I walked it just half an hour longer than I can run it. Hysterical isn't it. I finished though and that was the big thing for me at that point. Simply finishing was enough for me then.

After that race I changed PTs, I found a guy at Therapeutic Associates whose abilities I felt confident in, even if he was more than 10 years younger than me. After a few months the pain was gone. Now it's back.

Now what?

Now? Now I'm the bug.

Time

Time. Some days I seem to have more of it than others. Some days it seems I run out of it faster. And some days I seem to waste a lot of it. When I talk with people who are training for a specific long course event, be it a marathon or triathlon, I find the topic of time dominates the conversation. What I've realized is that time has many faces and none of them are very pretty.

First is the obvious topic of how much time it takes to train. To be successful at this takes a large chunk of time commitment nearly each day. Time to swim, time to run, time to bike. Then it's time to stretch and eat properly. Then it's time to sleep enough. I am good at finding the time to eat and sleep, but not always good at finding the time to do my workouts. Is there a duathlon for eating and sleeping? If so, sign me up and I'm turning pro. After long days at work I don't always want to jump in the pool or go for that long run in the rain. Not to mention the amount of time spent on the bike trainer, somehow that time seems to drrrraaaaaaggggg on and on and on regardless of the movie or TV show I'm using to distract me from the clock. Please stop raining soon so I can go back outside.

So what happens? I find myself trying to find the time to cram in two days of workouts into one day (like today for instance, still need to complete the swim from yesterday and the run from Tuesday--little motivation this spring break). Instead of completing what I need to in the time allotted for it I have to find new time to fit more in, or I allow others to change what I have my time set aside for. Instead of doing what I know I should do (workout) I agree to last minute dinner plans, Blazers games, happy hour invites or other unplanned activities. While I know it's good to spend time with people and not plan your life out too much, it's also not good to skip workouts.

Of course there is the time to spend with your family and loved ones. Since my family doesn't live close I don't have to try and find time to see them weekly, but I wish I did have to do that. I do have to make sure to spend quality time with the Hot Tamale. Since he trains for full Ironman races his time is much more planned out than mine and I have to remember not to be selfish and want more of it than he can give right now, especially since I know the summer will be even worse leading up to Louisville. Sometimes that is hard though, I totally dig spending my time with him.

Then there's time you want to beat. Whether it's to PR my run, cut a minute from my Vancouver Lake TT, get down to at least a 40 minute open water swim or break 6 hours on my 70.3. Here's one way to try and do two of those:

This also has to do with time other than in terms of beating it, meeting it or chasing it. It's more time in terms of spending it making money. Is it worth it to work X amount of hours (like I have the time--or the stomach to figure out what my hourly rate is) to buy it? Is it worth the time I work to pay entry fees, plane tickets, hotel bills and restaurant checks? Only time will tell.

Time is on my side. Yes it is.

I am 37 going on 13...

I turn 37 Monday, it's amazing to think I've been on this earth for 37 years.

It doesn't seem 20 years ago that I was kicked out of my high school newspaper class because I threatened to eat my teacher's baby (I was REALLY mad at the time, obviously). It doesn't seem that long ago that going out before 9 p.m. was unheard of, the bars in Pullman didn't get going until at least 10. Now going out after 9 p.m. seems like Russian roulette, "can I stay awake long enough?"

I can't drink as much beer, or gin, or vodka or other crazy concoctions I would purchase for $1 on dollar well night at Shermer's. I can't stay up late, or sleep in. I can't eat a plate of pizza bites dipped in ranch dressing for dinner, or breakfast. I can't do shots of tequila, with or without the maraschino cherry. I can't even think of functioning if I have a hangover. I can't drink bad beer, sorry Natty Light.

I can't seem to live on $600 a month--that included rent, gas, alcohol, food and entertainment. I can't sit in front of a TV on Tuesday morning eating donuts and drinking coffee while watching Charlie's Angels and WKRP reruns. I can't go out all night, get a few hours sleep and still get up to go to work and be productive. I can't let a messy bed go unmade. It's funny how getting older has refined my need for tidiness and cleanliness, ask any college roommate I had and they'll tell you that was never much of a concern of mine.

What doesn't seem to change as I get older is the fact that I don't seem to mature much beyond 13. I like to call it child-like as opposed to childish. Life is too short to be too serious all the time, although it could be argued I should be serious sometimes.  Maybe I'll work on that.

Probably not.

When I turned 30 I wrote a list of things I wanted to do in my 30th year. Here is one page from that list that when I read it the other day made me tired just thinking of what it would take to do all of this.

The list was huge, mostly unobtainable and oft influenced by others interests instead of my own intrinsic wants and desires. So, to make up for that crappy list from seven years ago here is my list of lofty things to do in my 37th year:

1. Learn to make cheese
2. Complete more triathlons
3. Beat my current PR on a 5k
4. Stretch more
5. Grow a vegetable garden (raised beds already made!)

6. Watch less TV
7. Read more (I'll even try more fiction)
8. Be a better friend
9. Be a better daughter
10. Be a better girlfriend
11. Say "yes" more (and yes, that makes me giggle just re-reading it)

Not so lofty, huh? I've decided that making quantifiable goals keep me from taking a U turn when it is presented that may lead to something amazing, or not so amazing. But how would I have known either way if I didn't take the chance in the first place? When I was in high school one of my mom's good friends, Barb, told me that making goals just keeps you from doing all the fun things you'd miss while you were too focused on making it to that one specific event. Besides, wouldn't you rather just enjoy life as it comes at you?

Um, yes. And I think I've lost some sight of that.

I'm going to spend the next year trying to let a lot of things just be. Just be what they are. Be who they are. Be who I am.

I am going to spend the next year entering 38 better than I entered 37.

"Dos" and "Don'ts"

When I was younger my mother had a subscription to the magazine Glamour, in the back of each issue was a "dos" and "don'ts" section. This section was filled with women who were either fashion "dos" or fashion "don'ts," these "don'ts" women usually had black bars across their eyes as to not embarrass them to an entire world of Glamour readers. I always felt bad for those women who were forever branded as “don'ts” among the glossy pages of that fashion rag, worried that one day someone might notice them in a crowd and point accusingly while laughing at the outfit they were wearing. I also cringed at the idea of the moment one of their friends opened to that page and recognized the hideous outfit branded a “don’t.” Awkward next girl’s night out for sure.

Little did I know I was one of those “don'ts,” not in terms of clothes (minus the phase I went through in 8th grade where I wore three Swatch watches hooked together as a headband--I think I may have photographic evidence of it buried deep somewhere in my cedar chest) rather in terms of swim form.

If you are like me you figure swimming is swimming, if you don't drown you are doing it right. I don't remember taking swim lessons, as far as I know my mom and dad taught me to swim by throwing me off the boat while floating on the Snake River, I didn’t sink. Viola! Swimming. However the way I learned to swim apparently wasn't the right way.

Last year the Hot Tamale and I took a swim clinic from our coach Mark Kendall at Speedshot racing. During this clinic each participant was videotaped underwater, once each person was taped we took to the pool deck to "critique" each person's form. As each swimmer came on to the computer screen Mark and other swimmers made comments like, "look at that rotation, good extension, great catch, good head position, great kicking from the hips." When it came to me, the group fell silent, Mark struggled to find the words to describe how terrible my swimming was without completely offending his new client. Apparently I'm just lucky enough not to sink to the bottom of the pool. Mark was a good sport and offered lots of support and suggestions to help me become a better swimmer.

From that moment until yesterday I have been working tirelessly on improving my swimming form. I have taken lessons from Mark, attended swimming clinics with gold medal Olympiads, practiced, practiced and practiced. Each time I get in the pool I feel like something is different, that somehow my form has changed—even though that change in form makes me question the idea that it won’t cause me to sink to the bottom of the pool. This change hasn't made me faster and it hasn't made me such a great swimmer that I am signing up to cross the English Channel.

But yesterday, all that work and practice finally paid off. I was a "do." We went to another swim clinic yesterday trying to brush up on our form and, for what I had expected, some new and major things to work on. But no. Not this time. This time Mark started my video and the first words out of his mouth were, "look at that, she's starting her catch, great form." I couldn’t believe my ears. Hot Tamale and I looked at each other in shock, “Is that you he’s talking about?” HT’s eyes said to me. My eyes responsed, “Holy shit, it can’t be.” But it was. That was me catching the water as my arm broke the surface. That was me holding my arm and moving my body past it. That was me kicking enough but not too much. That was me on that screen.

That was me. I was a do.

I am the walrus...

What an amazing Sunday it has turned out to be. Instead of parking myself on the kitchen island as I write I am sitting in my Adirondack chair on the back deck enjoying the sun. This is a sure sign that spring is sneaking itself around the corner, that and I saw the spring lambs out  playing in the pastures this morning. This place, this moment is just where I want to be.

Last month in Triathlete Magazine there was an article titled "Aloha, Muffin Top." It was written by a woman who, by the sound of it from the article, is a pretty accomplished aged grouper. The article was about how, as a triathlete, you are constantly bombarded with and surrounded by people with AMAZING bodies. Not the emaciated bodies shown in Vogue or Cosmo that the mainstream press deem amazing, starving yourself really doesn't take all that much work, no these bodies come from hours upon hours of hard work .

These bodies have veins that show (which I personally find absolutely hot). These bodies have abs that aren't six packs, they're half racks.  The problem is, and was the main point in the article, that these bodies are genetically impossible for most of us plebeians to attain. Just as it is an unhealthy obsession for 17 year-old girls to want to be Kate Moss it is unhealthy for someone like myself to obsess over wanting to be Chrissie Wellington. It just isn't feasible, it's possible for sure, but not realistic. This doesn't mean I don't spend useless hours obsessing over it though.

I am by no means overweight. I wear a size 8 which is six sizes smaller than the "average" American woman who, according to the CDC's measurements, is a size 14.  This isn't to say couldn't stand to loose a few pounds for the sake of making running easier and hopefully faster. I average about 145 pounds but would like to drop 5-10 to see how it affects my running. I watch what I eat and try to make sure I'm getting no more than 1,800 calories a day. I follow the workouts my coach plans for me. I drink a lot of water and outside of skinny lattes I don't normally drink my calories (I gave up drinking a bottle of Merlot a night years ago). And yet each morning when I step on the scale hoping to see a smaller number than the day before I am disappointed. 145. Much like my frustration with my 10 minute mile it seems my body just likes 145. Regardless.

There will come a time when I am at peace with that. When the digital readout of 145 won't cause me to sigh heavily and screw up my face in the mirror as I admire the way my lips, nose, cheeks and eyes can smoosh themselves together in such an unattractive way. Much like the author of the article I will one day wake up and embrace the hips, and thighs, and curves, and butt.

Until then...

Goo goo g' joob.

There's a lot I can Learn from Tiger

Unlike Tiger Woods my parents screwed me genetically.

Let me be more specific. My parents screwed me genetically in terms of running.  They threw me a solid with intelligence, perseverance, work ethic and general strength (I believe much of that strength comes through the beauty of evolution and being evolved from generations of hard-working farmers). These "farmer" genes help on the bike, big legs never hurt pushing that big gear up a hill. But as for things like, oh, let's say, running I got screwed. It seems no matter how much or often I run it's always the same. Ten minute, give or take some seconds, pace. Regardless. Ten minute miles. Ten fucking minute miles.

There comes a time during each of my runs, whether long or short, where I get discouraged and want to give up, stop running, walk back and throw in the proverbial towel. I give those thoughts a good five or ten minutes in my head and decide to continue on. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's the stubborn-as-hell gene my parents passed my way.

Each day I head out with positive thoughts cycling through my head, positive images of myself running just a few seconds faster, positive goals to meet-then I get passed by the 65 year-old lady who appears to be running with a major hitch in her giddy-up. Positive thoughts are gone. Those thoughts are then replaced with anger, disappointment and, I guess, motivation. The second half of my run is fueled by fury, indignation and the desire to best my last run by at least one second. In the end more often than not I find I didn't best anything, but I finished what I set out to do. Finishing doesn't change the fact that I want to be faster, that I want to pass people out on my runs, I want to know I can finish that half marathon in two hours or less. The more I think about it the worse I make myself feel.

In Tiger's poorly delivered and, quite frankly, pointless speech Friday he said, "Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security." While I'm no Buddhist, nor do I have an urge to become one, there is a lot I can take from that one thing. On my next run I will try to repeat that to myself and just enjoy being outside, be thankful that I can run at all and remember that it can always be worse, I could be running 11 minutes miles.

Until then, I got a pedicure to try and ease the frustration.  Dutch didn't get one, he just likes to lick my toes when I'm at the kitchen island.

Hobbies

Hobby is defined as "An activity or interest pursued outside one's regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure." What are you hobbies? I'm afraid I have none, or at least none I am good at doing so that removes the pleasure portion of having a hobby of ones own. 

I enjoy cooking and do it almost daily. But I don't consider it it a hobby, I consider it a way to eat well and save tons of money by not eating out. There was also a rumor circulating that the way to man's heart was through his stomach, I've yet to decide on that one. I am good at it though so maybe I should consider it a hobby so I don't feel so hobbieless. 

Last Friday was a vacation day for me so I signed up for a one day photography workshop. I have an awesome digital DSLR and several lenses that I don't know how to use to make pretty pictures. The more photographs I take the more I am starting to realized Ansel Adams really had some talent in the darkroom department. When I view photographs that look effortless in their composition and execution I get jealous. How on earth did that person get that lighting and that movement at the same time all the while adjusting f-stops and shutter speeds for the perfect photo? When I have that figured out it could be in the front running for a hobby.

Training? Not really a hobby and I don't think I engage in training/racing for pleasure because most of the time it hurts like hell. Also, I'm not really good at it. Does something become a hobby when you spend countess hours each week practicing at it? Does something become a hobby when you plan and arrange your life around it? Does something become a hobby when you lie awake at night thinking about how to save more money to buy that tri bike? Does something become a hobby when you pay good money to a man to plan out workouts for you? 

Maybe the pleasure of a hobby comes in knowing you have done everything you could do on that day, for that race, for that moment. Maybe it comes in the feeling you get after you run hill repeats, not the feeling of wanting to puke, rather the feeling of success in leaving everything you had in you out on that hill. Maybe it comes in worrying if I'm doing enough today to do as well as I want to in June. Maybe it never comes at all. 

 Hobbies are overrated.

Tread Water

Getting up at 4:15 a.m. is rough, doing it to go torture yourself at a 5:30 spinning class is just plain stupid. But I do it twice a week, even though I know better. Today I was supposed to also swim in the afternoon, which I did not complete in fear of pulling a River Phoenix in "My Own Private Idaho" and falling asleep right at 25 yards in the pool.

I tire very easily at the end of the day. I don't know if it's because of an iron deficiency, some medical problem or I'm just getting old (I vote old) but it really makes some days near impossible to get the workouts in. Today, for instance I could barely keep my eyes open on the way home and therefore didn't go to the gym to swim. This would be the half-assed part of me. Had I powered up and gone to the gym I'm sure I could have completed the workout, but I chose not to.

Days like this I feel overwhelmed and under-committed.

In the wise words of De La Soul:
Always look to the positive and never drop your head
For the water will engulf us if we do not dare to tread
So let's tread water

That's What Friends Are For

My BF from since I was 12 years old sent me this via Facebook after reading the last two blog posts, for some reason her computer won't allow her to leave a comment here. It gave me that blurry eye thing you get when you aren't actually crying but you have tears going. I guess that is the definition of welling up?

"Okay Darling, I have to tell you that you can do it. You are capable of doing anything you set your mind to. Yeah, sometimes there are physical limitations and you can't help injury...bottom line-you finished, you didn't quit, you kept going and you FINISHED. Go ahead, enter your credit card number and KICK SOME ASS! Tell you what, let's make a deal-you continue your training and I will train for a 10k this summer (you know for me that is a big deal). Even if you don't always believe in yourself, there are some us who do."

I did it today, here's my confirmation email:
Dear Heather,
Congratulations! You are now registered for 2010 Ironman 70.3 Boise.

Thank you for believing in me Karla, and for giving me a good swift kick in the ass when I needed it most.

Shaming Myself

As a way to shame myself when I look at the blog I am posting my times from last year's Boise 70.3
Swim- 1:04:07
T1-5:20
Bike- 3:40:40
T2- 5:54
Run- 2:54:21
Total Time: 7:50:22

Back in the Saddle, Again?

While I have yet to actually pay the entry fee for Boise 70.3 I have visited the sign-up page nearly 10 times in the last few days. I have filled out all of my information. I have typed my initials in the box to represent my signature acknowledging I understand I could drown during the swim or drop dead of a heart attack while getting my finisher photo taken. These risks are well known to me and, quite honestly, don't really take up too much of my thought process.

What does take up whatever lobe of the brain creates worry is the thought of failure. Not that I could fail much more than I did last year. Finishing less than an hour before the cut-off time isn't something to shout about, I feel guilty wearing the finisher hat sometimes.

Logically, I know that swimming 1.2 miles in white caps isn't the easiest thing to do when you have a fear of drowning stemming from a childhood incident. Logically, I know that walking a half marathon with an inured knee in less than 3 hours is pretty God damned good. Logically, I know that I finished before the cut-off time and am therefore a finisher. My mother has always told me that some things in life are worth doing half-assed, but if it is something you want to do then you better put your all into it and do it up right.

2009 was half-assed.

I approached my training half-assed. I approached nutrition half-assed. I approached my knee injury half-assed. I approached the race half-assed.

The theme for 2010 is full-assed.

During my run today I had an epiphany, I will probably never be a top 10 age grouper until I am in my 60s and I have to be okay with that. God (or whoever gets to make the decisions) has blessed me with good humor, good looks, good brains and several marketable skills, God did not bless me with elite athleticism. I just have to be okay with that.

If I can muster up the courage today I will once again visit the Boise 70.3 site and put in my credit card number.