40 with an average of 18

I rode 40 miles today. It was ok. My back is still giving me grief, but the way back was much better than the way out; riding my bike always made my back feel better. Stretching at mile 20 made my hips/back crack and the pain was instantly gone. If only it would stay!!

The best part of the ride ... catching up with Anne :)

4-6 mile run tomorrow ... depending on how the back feels. Better charge the iPod ... best pain reliever ever!!

But, but ... I love(d) to ride!

I've developed an aversion to riding my bike. This saddens me to no end. I never thought this could be. I am mad at my bike. I'm tired of getting hurt. Twice this year I've fallen from my saddle: once last month because of some idiot who backed into me and the other ... last week in the living room (yes ... its still funny). Two years ago I had to ditch my bike because one of my breaks failed (after I had had them worked on) and I didn't want to crash into the peleton I was riding with. Fractured three ribs. They still hurt sometimes after a hard swim or yoga class.

Everyone knows .... I loved my bike ... LOOOOOOOOOVVVED it. Loved. Past tense? Is the relationship over? Have I been hurt one too many times to forgive and ride?

I've been eying a Cervelo P3. Wow is that bike beautiful. I had a Cervelo One. You know, the first Time Trial bike Cervelo made. It was a low budget gem. That bike was sooooo fast. I nicknamed it "The Rocket". We spent a year together riding very very fast. And then it started to fall apart. Cervelo didn't make it to last. And it didn't. Things were falling off it every mile or so. It began to flat on every ride with no explanation. The chain fell off constantly ... even after I bought not one, but two new ones.

My Litespeed road bike was still there waiting for me once the Cervelo was sold.

I've had my Litespeed for 8 years. I fell in love with it during the test ride. I thought I'd never have to buy another road bike again. I've upgraded the components and wheels. But I have never done an Ironman on it ... I rode The Rocket last time up in Canada. 2 flats too. Bu tyou already know about that.

Can I make it work? The Litespeed, I mean? I bought a new seat and seat post after the crash last week. They seem just fine. My aerobars need fixing. The chain needs a bit of oil. As much as I'd like to buy the P3, spending that kind of money right now seems needlessly decadent in a time when frugality is the acceptable trend.

I hope tomorrow's ride brings back my love of my bike ... my love to ride.

An Intimate Moment with a Photograph

I wrote this the night before a first date with someone I met on Matchin the spring of 2004. It was an intense two week email/instant message courtship that was both incredibly exciting and strange ... could that kind of never-felt-like-this-before chemistry online transfer offline? It did. And after we were dating for a bit I shared this with him. He was blown away on several levels and urged me to submit it somewhere for publishing. Later that summer, while driving home from a 5 day volleyball tournament in Reno, one of the volleyball moms, who was once a high powered, literary agent in Manhattan, said she'd submit it to the New Yorker. Two months after that, I received a check from Conde Nast that was big enough for me buy a pair of Manolo Blahnik shoes on eBay and celebrate; the New Yorker had optioned my piece. I have since received another small check, never actually saw it published in the magazine and now that the Option has expired ... here it is:

Oh and the guy ... he had to move away for reasons that I totally understood and actually wouldn't have had it any other way. We still stay in touch and no one I dated before or since has come close to evoking the same feelings for me.
----------------
An Intimate Moment with a Photograph

Have you ever stared into someone's eyes for an hour? If so, what did you see? Endless possibilities? A soul as deep as the deep blue sea? A mirror that reflects your exquisite imperfections? Love? Hate? A thousand candles burning in a temple in some far off land that teeters somewhere between spiritual bliss and human suffering?

It was your words that compelled me to you contact you, but it was your eyes that made me click, inviting me to come in. What did I see? Warmth. Depth. A glint. An energy. A hidden smile. Fun.

When I was younger, my brother, always the entrepreneur, sold tickets to the neighborhood kids to see his sister's, my eyes glow in the dark. Like a cat's eyes. They didn't. He got in big trouble.

I’ve been told that I can hypnotize the least suspecting male with my baby blues. I’ve actually seen it happen. This guy bought 15 boxes of Girl Scout cookies as he stared into my eyes. It wasn't a conscious thing on my part. It just was.

Have you ever looked across the room at someone, someone special, caught their eye and your heart skipped a beat? Have you ever communicated understanding with just a look? Shown displeasure with a glare?

I spent sometime with a blind girl name Emily. She’s a triathlete. And you would think that since her eyes can't see, there would be nothing to see in her eyes. Wrong. So wrong. I saw focus, determination, and excitement. Of course we were talking about Wildflower the race I had done that morning (long course) and the one she was about to do the next (olympic) with her guide, Luis.

I remember the look in my grandma’s eyes when I found her on the floor in her kitchen. Peaceful ... at last. She had just lay down and died. She’s my mother's mother. And was never happy in all the years I had known her. And there she was looking happy for the first time.

Do you remember your oldest’s eyes when he was first born? If he was at all like mine, there wasn't much going on. Her eyes were dark bluish grey. It was about a week before there was expression. And a bit longer before they became true blue. We really don't know how she got her blue eyes. Her dad's eyes are brown. And we thought that was the dominant gene. But she had blue eyes in all my dreams when I was pregnant.

I’m sitting here in the near dark, computer screen glowing. I’ve got your picture up - the close-up one, the one where I can look into your eyes. Even though it is just a photo and completely motionless, there is so much there. And I pretend that you are looking at me and … I am looking forward to looking into your eyes for real.

This week's training schedule 02/23/09

So ... last week was a bust. Yes, my back got worse despite the therapy. One 4 mile run. No rides. Our pool closed down due to a broken heater. I finagled a free pass to the Y and got in a nice swim before I crashed my bike and all I've done since is two 4+ mile walks.

I did schedule a massage for today and that seems to compliment the acupuncture and I am slowly on the mend. I don't know how much I'll be able to do. I actually really did hurt myself crashing. I feel like I'll never make it to Ironman ... one step forward and one step back. But I constantly remind myself that even though it seems like I'm not making progress ... I really am. But is it enough?

Here's my schedule for this week:

Monday: off, massage
Tuesday: swim, core/upper body workout
Wednesday: ride 60 minute, upper body workout
Thursday: swim, core/upper body workout
Friday: run 4 miles, lower body workout
Saturday: ride 2 hills hours
Sunday: run 6 miles

so ... i crashed my bike yesterday

in the living room. Yes ... go ahead and laugh. I'm sure it looked hysterical. scared the be-jesus out of my daughter, Gabriela and her boyfriend, Orhan who we in the other room both icing their backs (G hurt herself in the weight room at school and O is just a battered HS soccer player - they won 1st round of CIF's yesterday, BTW). I'm sure it sounded horrifically spectacular.

Here's what happened: my seat post broke in a way to flip my seat back, thus, I slide backwards taking my bike with me flipping it 180 degrees over me ... i only went about 90 degrees onto my back after hitting and sliding ... down my Chinese bamboo cabinet (its ok, phew!). In the process, my handle bars batted a glass vase, sending it shattering into the wall behind me and my front wheel knocked the tv off kilter ... luckily not all the way off.

How totally absurd and yes, comical. I wish I had a camera going! I'll be fine. Will know more in a day or two ... you know how injuries can get a bit worse before they get better. I am sore in weird places and have some interesting bruises - but nothing like hitting the pavement. I do have two large cuts one in the crease behind my left knee and the other on my inner thigh and cannot figure out how that happened; CSI has yet to investigate :)

Guess I'll be shopping instead of riding this weekend. I like shopping for bike stuff. Need to get a camera too!

This week's training schedule 02/16/09

I made it through last week's schedule just fine. Workouts were good ... had a great run, but my back is starting to object. I herniated a disk in my lower back while rowing in college. And, of course, I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to loose my seat in the Varsity boat. Before my first Ironman, I went to the acupuncturist for the Korean Olympic team. The only words he said in English were, "This gonna hurt". He was right, but after 3 weeks of several session a week I was pain and sciatica damage free.

I think I'll have to have my back worked on before it prevents me from working out all together.

Here's what's up for this week:

Monday: off, acupuncture
Tuesday: swim, core workout
Wednesday: ride 75 minute, upper body workout
Thursday: swim, core workout
Friday: run 4 miles, lower body workout
Saturday: ride 2.5 hills hours
Sunday: run 7 miles

This week's training schedule 02/09/09

Second month of base training

Monday: off, acupuncture
Tuesday: swim, core workout
Wednesday: ride 70 minute, upper body workout
Thursday: swim, core workout
Friday: run 3 miles, lower body workout
Saturday: brick- ride 2 hours, run 20 minutes; upper body workout
Sunday: run 6 miles

The weather is playing mid games

A week ago, it was 80 degrees. Last weekend it rained and hailed and flooded. This morning when I got up to go swim it was 37. I opted not to swim. The pool at Santa Monica College is outdoors and although it is heated to a balmy 82 degrees, it have been my experience that somehow, someway the cold still gets deep into my bones and I can shiver for days. No kidding.

When I was a teenager, the cold never bothered me. I had a balcony off my room and I kept the doors open year round. Even when it rained; I love weather. My parents called my room “the meat locker” and would rarely set foot into it (hehehehehehe).

When my daughter was born, she took with her my inner heating element and I’ve been cold ever since.

As long as I can keep my body warm, as in last Friday when we watched my daughter’s boyfriend’s last high school soccer home game in the freezing rain, I’m ok. But after swimming in the pre-dawn, just above freezing weather, I’m never warm. Go figure. I may have finally admit it … I’m a cold wimp … and find an indoor pool. I can’t skip workouts this week and it looks like the 80 degree weather won't be back for sometime.

Facebook deleted my list of 25 things - wonder what I said? Still getting tagged so ... I'll try to tell some stories this time

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you ... but I think RULES are sometimes made to be broken. If you do jump on the band wagon and decided to write ... at the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to “notes” under tabs on your profile page, paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the right hand corner of the app) then click publish.

1. I met a guy at Helen's Cycles last Friday that I was so taken with that I, I ... uh I ... all I could do was smile and be totally flirty. He was buying tires for his mountain bike when he struck a conversation with me (deep sigh!)

2. If I could create the perfect man for me, in an outward sense, it would have been him ...except without the wedding band :(

3. The summer when I was 11, I would pack my little orange backpack with sandwiches and fruit and take off for our all-girl fort in the hills above our houses. It was soo cool. We cleared away the sage brush enough to crawl into our handmade dueling, the ground covered with odd pieces of carpet taken from the left-over pile outside the new houses at the dead end of our block. We'd hang mobiles from the branches and play until we could hear our mothers call us from far away. We even had a old Panasonic transistor radio and listened to the top 40 on AM radio. We'd even get into "wars" with the some of the boys, and tepee or girlify their forts for fun. Then came a rash of fort "ambushes" and we decided to hang out at he pool instead of the hills before we got attacked.

4. When I was a freshman and sophomore in college, I dated a cutie named Bill - Senior, IR/ Econ major, swim team. One night early in our relationship, we were talking about where we grew up and things we did as kids. He was telling me this great story about the fort he made with his friends in the canyon below the house he grew up in. He went on and on about the great times he shared with his buddies in that fort and the details of its decor and how long it took for them to make it the perfect hang out ... that is ... until some stupid boys from another block totally trashed it one summer, with shaving cream and pink toilet paper. But it was ok ... he totally trashed their fort. It suddenly made sense. We girls trashed Bill's fort thinking it was our little brother's fort. And Bill and his friends trashed my brother's fort thinking it was them. It started a cycle of ambushes between the boys from 5 different blocks ... oh the humanity!! Funny, I had no idea there were kids from other blocks building forts in OUR hills. And I never met Bill before college. However, I am certain it was his fort that we creamed.

5. In 1995, I was invited by the University of Idaho to be a presenter at the Borah Symposium. It was a week long event culminating in a two day conference with the Theme: Population, Peace and Conflict. I was in awe of my fellow presenters. Some we my heros and wrote books that I studied in graduate school. I rewrote my key presentation 20+ times (we gave smaller talks to various classes and student groups on campus and did the faculty and alumni group cocktail parties too). I practiced in front of the mirror whenever I had a free moment. I was to speak last. Oh the pressure. I threw up whenever I'd think about standing at the podium in front of a packed audience and the CSPAN cameras. AND my "peers" who were really my elders and brilliant and accomplished and .... I'm getting nauseous thinking about it now! When it was finally mine time, there seemed to be nothing more to say. They had said it all - straight forward historical data to back their theories. They were the experts. I was too young to be that yet. I thought, "What could I possibly add to this exceptional group of human beings and the sharing of their life's work?"

I left my prepared speech at the table and went to the podium. I began to speak from the heart, from experience. I told firsthand stories of war and the effects on population and its impact on immigration from my own experiences. I talked about coups that I witnessed and human rights abuses and environmental disasters and the destroying of families and communities and lives as a consequence of population growth. I shared the reason why I decided to do the work that I did. I talked about what we in Moscow, Idaho that afternoon, as individuals, could do to reverse some of the trends that the experts had so eloquently lectured just before me.

I paused several times, because I found myself getting emotional and though that was unprofessional. But the pauses served my speech. I told the members of the audience that this symposium had the power to be a great catalyst and that by coming it showed that we all want a different future free from conflict. After my 30 minutes was up, I thanked the Borah Foundation for inviting me and shared what an honor it was to be in the company with the other panelists. I closed by suggesting that small everyday acts of courage and change could amount to a lot.

My ex-husband told me later that he saw people crying as I spoke. He said the standing ovation lasted more than 5 minutes until the moderator had to settle everyone down. I don't remember this, but I remember the feeling of exhilaration from it all.

It was the last big speech of my non-profit career.

6. Out of curiosity, I just read the speech I had originally prepared to present that day. Hmmm. Have you ever done that? Read something you wrote long ago, something that at the time you thought wasn't good enough, but are now in awe of the sheer intelligence with which it was prepared? I made the right choice to switch directions at the symposium. And I also wish I was still that f***in' smart!

7. In 1987, I was a lab assistant for several field researchers from the Marine Biology Department at USC. I was to help collect sea sponge specimens and then test for their antibiotic properties at the University of the South Pacific in Suva, Fiji. Basically, I got to go scuba diving in Fiji with my boyfriend for free :)

On a dive out by a deserted island (I've never seen so many geckos running amok in my life!), I collected a yet to discovered variety of sea sponge that turned out to have extraordinary anti-biotic properties with far fewer side effects than any other antibiotic drug at the time. My boyfriend tried to name it after me. USC would have none of that.

8. I have wanted to compete in Ironman Hawaii ever since I first saw it in 1982.

9. I stood in the cold, pouring rain Friday for 3 hours to watch my daughter's boyfriend play his last high school soccer game at home and am glad I did.

10. As a coach, a lover of learning and a parent, I get overwhelmingly frustrated with the lack of new knowledge and science applied to high school sports.

11. I'm still thinking about the guy at Helen's (see number 1 and 2).

12. I used to have a white German Sheppard named Tanya. I really miss Tanya.

13. I had a photo exhibit once called The Children of the Soviet Union at a small gallery in Venice. The entire collection was purchased by a doctor who volunteered for Physicians for Social Responsibility.

14. When I was in the 5th grade, I wanted to be President of the United States. My teacher told me to write my theme paper on it and suggested that I write to the current President for advice. A couple of weeks later, I received a letter from the White House suggesting that I take up a profession more suited for a girl like teaching or nursing. The letter was signed by Richard Milhous Nixon. I tore it up in a million tiny pieces.

15. I got so nervous my novice year before the start to a crew race that I had to constantly pee. After a while, and a winning season, my boat mates took it as a sigh of good luck. Because of that, I pretended even when I didn't have the urge until my very last crew race.

16. I had lunch with Kofi Annan when he was Secretary General of the UN.

17. My favorite thing to do is to goof off and laugh hysterically with my daughter. My second most favorite thing to do is ride my bike fast.

18. I'm going to leave this one blank for now. Perhaps I'll fill this in with the story that Kerry urged me to tell.

19. I sneaked into the closing ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics posing as a member of the US Swim Team and "Danced all Night Long".

20. I sneaked into the pool at the National Training Center in Moscow, Russia, USSR posing as a member of the Soviet Swim Team.

21. Number 20 occurred about a month before number 19.

22. I haven't sneaked into anything in a long time.

23. I love to write.

24. Someday, I will make the docucomedidrama that I wrote 4 years ago.

25. I am surrounded by wonderful, healthy and loving couples on the eve of Valentine's week. And surprisingly, I am once again feeling hopeful rather than bitter and cynical ;)

A previous life

In 1995, I was invited by the University of Idaho to be a presenter at the Borah Symposium. It was a week long event culminating in a two day conference with the Theme: Population, Peace and Conflict. I was in awe of my fellow presenters. Some we my heros and wrote books that I studied in graduate school and beyond. I rewrote my key presentation 20+ times (we gave smaller talks to various classes and student groups on campus and did the faculty and alumni group cocktail parties too). I practiced in front of the mirror whenever I had a free moment. I was to speak last. Oh the pressure. I threw up whenever I'd think about standing at the podium in front of a packed audience and the CSPAN cameras. AND my "peers" who were really my elders and brilliant and accomplished and .... I'm getting nauseous thinking about it now! When it was finally mine time, I thought that there was nothing more to say. They had said it all - straight forward with data to back their assumptions and fact to support their claims. They were the experts that I went to for information. What could I possibly add to this exceptional groups of human beings and the sharing of their life's work?

I left my prepared speech at the table and went to the podium. I began to speak from the heart, from experience. I told stories of war and the effects on population and its impact on immigration from my own experiences. I talked about coups that I witnessed first hand and human rights abuses and environmental disasters and the destroying of families and communities and lives asa consequence of population growth. I shared the reason why I decided to do the work that I did. I talked about what we in Moscow, Idaho that afternoon, as individuals, could do to reverse some of the trends that the experts had so eloquently lectured just before me.

I paused several times, because I found myself getting emotional. But it served my speech. I told the members of the audience that this symposium had the power to be a great catalyst and that by coming it showed that we all want a different future free from conflict. After my 30 minutes was up, I thanked the Borah Foundation for inviting me and shared what an honor it was to be in the company with the other panelists. I closed by suggesting that small everyday acts of courage and change could amount to a lot.

My ex-husband told me that he saw people crying as I spoke. He said the standing ovation lasted more than 5 minutes until the moderator had to settle everyone down.

It was the last big speech of my non-profit career.

Sat and Sun

Sat 01/31/09

Slept in
Breakfast at Patrick's Roadhouse at the beach
Worked on tax stuff
Ran errands
Saw a guy riding a scooter with his Trek bike strapped to the back - it was awesome!
Stretched
Iced
Hot Bath
Stretched some more
Ran 5 miles at 4:30 PM:
felt strong and had good energy
back/sciatica bothering me
best run in years
beautiful sunset
Sushi for dinner
Worked on writing training programs for clients while listening to a horror film that my daughter and her boyfriend were watching in the next room. It sounded scary!!
Asleep by mid-night

Sun - 02/02/09
Up early
Worked on bike to prep for ride
Road with Anne, Adam, Christy and Adam's cousin on a B-day ride for Adam. It was Tim's birthday too. So we sang in Tim's honor while he ran in 30 degree weather in Mississippi.
Ride 35 miles at 8am
felt moderately strong, good energy
back/sciatica bothering me
I cut it short (should have been 45 miles) cuz I didn't want to over do it like last week
Homemade French Toast with G, Adam, Anne and Christy
Stretch
Shower
Work a little
Taco birthday party at Tacos Por Favor with a Robot cake and everything!
Hung out with friends the rest of the day.
Perfect!