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.