I Told You So

I'm not a morning person, I never have been. Well, except maybe in Italy - I was regularly up before 8am without an alarm and was happy to be awake instead of cursing the sun. This is not that kind of morning. It's 5:10am and I'm putting on a swimsuit and shorts that are waaaay too tight for my comfort - the fact that they are designed to be that way because they are biker shorts doesn't make me feel any better. I'm going to be running in these things and I'm not used to doing so in such, uh, revealing clothing. But, as 6am rolls around and my friend picks me up to take me to our event, he reminds me that no one looks good at these things and you can't hide anything, so take comfort that everyone feels the same way.  
The sun still hasn't decided to join us and the ride to Decker Lake is quite a dark one. Not a lot of people up in Austin at this hour - until we hit the road to the park. The line of cars and tail lights goes on as far as we can see. Are there really this many crazy people in this town? Apparently, yes.
This is the Rookie Triathlon. The kickoff to the triathlon season, a warm up for veterans and a time to get hooked on the sport for newbies. I've always heard that triathlons are addictive but sitting in the car at this hour I'm not quite seeing it. To set the tone as we inch along through the line, we put Eminem's Till I Collapse on the iPod and I can tell I'm starting to get nervous. Why? Well, I haven't trained for this. At all. I consider myself a fairly fit person and I have no problems running a few miles and I can play tennis for hours, but swim? Bike? Uhhhhh..... I'm not sure. And certainly not all in one race. Granted, this is a rookie, so it's short - 300m swim, 11.3 bike and 2 mile run - so I feel confident I can do it, but in what time and accompanied by what pain, I have yet to find out. 
We park the car and you can already see the culture of the sport. It's blatantly obvious that despite this being a rookie, there are some people here to compete in a serious way. People walking by look you up and down and do most of their assessment on your skill level by looking at your bike. I don't own a bike so I've borrowed a friend of mine's for this event, but it's a hybrid meaning it's considerably heavier and has thicker tires than a road bike - the kind you would want for something like this. Not that this bothers me. I'm just trying this out and seeing how I do. I'll make the investment someday later given that somehow I actually enjoy the day which, again, doesn't seem likely. 
As we walk to the start of the course to get body marked and set up our bikes in the transition area, we realize that it is unusually cold for an Austin morning in April. Normally this would be welcome with a run or bike race, but this has the ever daunting component of a swim. Given the air temperature, there's no way the water can be any warmer - the officials have deemed this a wetsuit appropriate race to help deal with the cold water. I have no such wetsuit and this doesn't do much for my nerves. 
The transition area is like controlled chaos. A sea of bikes, helmets, biking shoes, running shoes, towels, water bottles and everything else you could think of for a race with three separate components. I get my little patch of grass set up with everything I need and rack my borrowed bike. From talking to many of the women around me, they are just as unprepared as I, so calm down a bit and decided I'll just go with it. I can do this. 
The race starts off at 8am with wave after wave of swimmer, seperated by age, gender and expertise level. Being in the womens rookie 30-39 group we are the second to last to enter the water. Thankfully the water is warmer than anyone expected an that is not a factor. What quickly becomes a factor as I start swimming is the fact the this isn't a pool. It's open water, choppy and filled with other people trying to swim past you all at the same time. By the point I get to the half way mark to the first buoy, a whopping 50 meters, I am in a full out panic.  Flashes of EMS pulling me out of the water before I can even get to the first buoy are running across my head and it becomes blatantly obvious that I have to change strategies. Freestyle isn't going to cut it so I swtich to breaststroke. Ah. Happy place. I may be a turtle swimming through the water but I'm moving 
And more importantly not panicking. I slowly make my way around the buoys and sight the land. Good god, just get me on a bike. 
Getting out of the water we run up the hill to the transition area where most everyone is already coming back from the bike. A quick dry of the feet, throwing on a shirt, socks, shoes and a helmet and I'm off. This whole biking thing seems pleasant enough. Pretty country side, fairly flat and nice weather - oh, but this is just the first mile. Then I start to remember the trick about biking. You should always pull just as much as you push when you pedal to even out the load between your quads and hamstrings. That will not be the case today because I have no cage or clips so this is all pushing. Hmm, this could be bad for the run. And as I'm contemplating this, a 45 year and 52 year old blow by me on the bike (everyone is marke with their age on their left calf). This is not helping my confidence. We reach mile 8 and I do get an odd lift from seeing the hills ahead. Many of the riders are dismounting to walk it but I know I should have no huge problem, which I don't. I blow past them and pedal my way through the rest of the bike with only one thought, good god, get me to the run. 
And then there it is. Time to dismount and push through the 2 mile run. As soon as I start running, which after biking is always an odd feeling, I know I'm not going to stop to walk. Whatever zone they talk about runners getting in is firmly where I have found myself. I know my calves hurt and my left hamstring isn't too happy, but it doesn't really seem important, so I just go. And with 1:29 since the gun went off for our swim wave, I cross the finish line. I will finish 98 out 338 women when the results come out. 
At the beer garden, my race buddy asks me what I thought. He's trying for a half ironman, so he's already been squarely bit by the triathlon bug. "That was awesome. When can we do it again?". He laughs and says, "See, I knew you would like it. I told you so."
See you at the Pflugerville Sprint Triathlon in June. 

A Little Sunshine

I was reminded twice in the recent past that I haven't blogged in awhile and am severely overdue. I am happy to report that the dismal tone of which many of my posts were taking is now gone and I hope it doesn't return anytime soon. It wasn't so much a list that got me back on track, but it was saying 'get on with it' that eventually sunk in and gave the nudge I needed. I give most of the credit to getting up off my ass and getting my exercise and diet back to where it used to be - even better than it used to be. Ever since I was a senior in college I've had to fight black clouds overpowering my thoughts on a regular basis and I've done a lot of that management through exercise because I can't stand to be on medication. After the spiritual high of Italy, I was already on a downward slide as I came back to my real life and with that came being a couch potato, eating whatever I wanted and drinking far too much. The all out downward spiral resulted as was slightly chronicled in this blog, but to be honest, I kept a lot of it to myself with only a few people knowing how bad things were getting. To those few, I owe a big hug - I hope they know how special they are. Thanks to them and working with a trainer that showed me how to re-tool my diet, I was able to start to feel whole again. It's funny, I was wallowing in self pity for at least three months and it only took three weeks to lose almost 10 pounds and for my ego to rebound. Guess it goes to show that sometimes when you have your mind set on something, you can do good things.
So for the physical aspect of life, I've gotten a big lift. I recognize though that it probably wouldn't have happened quite so easily if I didn't have the job I do. I've talked about the flexibility it affords me, but it became very apparent as I was able to add in tennis drill sessions on Friday afternoons at lunch, workout for an hour on random afternoons with my trainer, and making meals at home that fit my new diet. The culture of the job I have now allows for those things. Granted, I pay for it by having to work later at night and on the weekends, but it's worth it to me. I'd rather have the time to screw around a bit during the week and work a few hours on the weekend then have the 9-6pm locked schedule at an office. The other factor is that I can work anywhere in the world - when I interviewed and got this job when I was over in Italy, I remember talking about how I could move to Italy if I wanted to and it wouldn't matter. While I still have no plans to move overseas, I do have plans to work from Philly while I visit my family for a week. I could go anywhere or visit anyone and as long as I have an Internet connection I don't have to take any vacation. Again, that's pretty amazing and I am hugely thankful for it.
And speaking of Italy, Lucie and I touched base via email and I passed on the news that I will not be making it over there until September. The summers get quite warm there and she highly recommends that I wait until then so that I can enjoy it. I'm going to take the opportunity to work remotely in Philly to show my boss that I can work away from home and have no issues or loss of quality with my work. The thought of being able to work at Lucie's house with the cats roaming all over the place and getting back to feeding the horses in the morning and everything else that was so magical there makes me want to get on a plane immediately. I was thinking the other night about the places that have had the most impact on me just by the air of the location. Lucie's farm is definitely one of them. I will never forget walking back from the barn from feeding the horses and looking onto the house with a thick fog enveloping it, the grass green and wet, and the chickens roaming about. I will also never forget watching the sunset at Athena'sTemple on the Greek island of Naxos. Being able to stand on that hill and watch something so beautiful with no one around will never happen again. And the last place that hugely stands out in my mind is the Black Hills in South Dakota. I haven't been back there since I was in AmeriCorps, which is a huge failing on my part, but it will always be with me as one of the most spiritual places in the US. Everyone has places that stick with them, experiences they carry with them - it reminds me of a toast a friend recently gave this past weekend at dinner. There was much more to it, but the takeaway was this: "Life is a collection of stories". We share in the experience of them, intertwine with them and connect through them. This weekend I added a huge collection of stories to my life and this coming weekend I will add another collection as my friend gets married and moves on into another phase of her life. I'm also observing my 33rd birthday, although it doesn't feel like that is coming up at all which seems appropriate this year. Maybe I just want my friend to have the spotlight for her wedding. Maybe I'm just content this year. But something feels good, something feels right. Finally.