Hi Ho Silver, Awayyyyyyyy

I have a confession to make: I have never named my bike. This does not mean I don't love my bike (notice, I also do not refer to my bike as a "he" or a "she", though I do speak a smidge of Romance languages, my bike has no gender). I do love my bike, I love it a lot. I could live on my bike. My bike and I are welded at the hip. But it has no name. A recent spate of posts on Trifuel and various blogs have pointed out this deficiency of nomenclature to me, but I doubt I'll be giving my bike a moniker any time soon.

Once, when my daughter was about six and just starting into her ongoing horse obsession, she named all of our bikes with cute horsie names like "Blackie", "Big Red", and "Ginger". My tri bike became "HiHoSilver" on account of its titanium frame and lack of paint. But I am not about to start blogging about the adventures of me and HiHoSilver, trust me on that one. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I know that for vast numbers of tri-geeks out there, naming your bike is some sort of moral imperative, and though I can understand that, it's just not for me.

The other day I was waxing poetic about my wonderful bike and my good friend said that she could tell how much I loved my bike because it seemed like an extension of my body when I rode. Sometimes it feels more like an extension of my soul. I am frequently and inexplicably moved to tears when I ride. Like just in the middle of a ride I'll start crying just from the sheer joy of it. Sometimes it even happens going uphill (though much more likely on the downhill side). I have a favorite ride out into a little valley filled with vineyards that almost never fails to make me tear up. I may very rarely feel that fabled "runner's high", but the biker's high? I own it.

My bike and I will be heading up to the lake this weekend with the TNT team for our final brick. A nice long swim in the relatively balmy 60 degree water and then we'll head out along a bike trail that parallels the lake, also one of my favorite places to ride. Then we'll cap it off with a run, chat about transitions and they'll be ready to roll for next Saturday. Then I'll head back along another favorite ride. Just me and my unnamed, two-wheeled best friend.

Here's the other unnamed bikes in my life: My old, unrestored Schwinn tandem, my around-town Stumpjumper, my Bike Friday tandem with the tag-a-long, My old tri bike (Giant Cadex carbon with those great Scott DB bars), my hubby's yellow Bianchi that I rode for one season, and my awesome titanium tri bike, formerly known as HiHo Silver!

And You Really Should Watch This

As I was quoting this movie in my previous post, I just have to say if you haven't seen the movie "Always", then rent it. Really, it's one of the nicest little mostly-overlooked movies of the last twenty years. It's funny, it's sad, it's got action, romance, something for everyone. And the actors are top knotch, and it has airplanes - what more can you want? Just rent it already.

I Was Rusty On Panic

One of my favorite movies of all time is Always, with Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter, and John Goodman. In one of the early scenes, Richard Dreyfuss' character is piloting an A-26 through burning treetops and says calmly "Oh this is good. I was rusty on panic." That's about how I felt last week as I walked into my karate test and found that my evaluator would be The Sensei. Not just any old instructor but the head of our dojo. Not that he's a particularly fear-inducing person, he's really a very very nice guy, the kind of person that you really like as well as respect. Nothing like my first sensei when I took Judo as a teenager who regularly scared the crap outta me. But still, The Sensei is The Sensei, and I knew for a fact that, unlike some of the younger black belts who might be less attentive or more distracted, he would be actually paying attention to everything I was doing out there.

I don't think I'd felt this nervous since I woke up wondering what I'd forgotten to put in all those bags you turn in at the Ironman. There's nervous, which is what I get before every race or big event, and then there's Nervous, which is a sensation I don't really like to feel all that often as it lands in the pit of my stomach with a thud. But here it was, and I just had to use my previous experiences to stuff it down and carry on. In retrospect, I know that I was so nervous because this time I really do want to follow through and get my black belt. I've taken martial arts half-assedly before, a couple of years of Judo and 18 months of karate. But I had never been able to visualize myself continuing on, let alone getting a black belt. My old dojo had a couple of perpetual brown belts that didn't lend one confidence or any kind of road map to seeing oneself as making it to a black belt level. This time it's different, and not just because I have met many encouraging black belts and see a clear path to working through to that level, but also because I started with my kids and I want them to see that you can pursue something all the way, even through the tough parts. If my kids want to get their black belts some day, the last thing I want to do is give them a model for quitting when the going gets tough.

Which brings me back to my test and my thudding stomach. I did just fine. There were a couple of things I muddled through. I'd forgotten my ankle brace and so my side kicks were weak when I had to pivot on my right foot. My wrist sometimes bends when I punch, especially with my left arm. Honestly, if I ever really punched someone with that left hand, my wrist would just about instantly dislocate (due to previous injuries), so it's an unlikely move for me to ever make. But still, it's something I know I need to work on. When I got my results back, Sensei picked up on all of those things, which let me know how closely he was observing. But overall it all went very very well (and thankfully the one time I really did mess up a move, I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he was looking down at the paper he was making notes on - phew!). I know that having gone through this test, I'll take the next one even more seriously. And some day I'll be taking that one test that I'll have to take most seriously of all!

Frosted

My pet peeve of the day: drivers who rip by you so close their mirrors almost take out your aerobars and.... they've got a bike rack on their car. What, they never ride on the road themselves? The road I was on had no shoulder, and every other driver politely gave me plenty of room. So why did Mr. Bike Rack need to be so rude, I ask...

Triathlon's Gift to Me

The scene was familiar: gear bag on one side, clothes and equipment spread all over the living room, checklist in hand, thinking over all the details of the quick transitions to be made.... the only difference is that I'm getting ready for my daughter's dance recital. Or should I say three dress rehearsals and four recitals in three different locations with six costume changes each! At eight years old, she's not really ready to handle the mass of hair, makeup, costume, and accessory changes herself at the fast pace she'll need to. Most of the girls on her dance team are several years older than her, but I'll be back in the dressing room helping her make the transitions so she can have her glorious nights on the big stage, something she looks forward to all year.

















By nature I'm not the world's most organized person. One of triathlon's many gifts to me has been to help me figure out how to sort, pack, check off, practice, and organize myself in situations like this. It's funny how many skills transfer from this sport that I love to the rest of my life. Discipline, tenaciousness, organization, good sportsmanship, the influence of triathlon helps all other aspects of my existance.

And today, it lets my daughter shine.

Adventures at Wickiup

Our TNT team mentors had the brilliant idea of camping out at the Pacific Crest racecourse, and letting our team members swim, bike, and run on the course to get a feel for how their race day would go. Despite dire weather forecasts, it ended up being pretty nice, if a little chilly (especially in the mornings). The big shocker of course was the lake temperature, a very brisk 52 degrees. Now a lot of seasoned triathletes won't even dip a toe in anything under 60, but our TNT team is a bunch of hardy souls, so on Saturday once the air temperature warmed up, we donned our wetsuits and jumped in for a swim. Yes, that's snow on the hills behind us!
















Despite some understandable skepticism and a few moments of also-understandable panic, we all got going. This is really the hardest thing for new triathletes, and as I've shared with my team I even feel a bit panicky when I first start open-water swimming each season. Between the wetsuit constricting your chest, the cold water, and whatever is lurking beneath you, it can be a bit nerve-wracking to say the least. I am so proud and happy that our teammates made that hurdle and not only swam on Saturday but on Sunday as well!


And look at that great form....and in a sleeveless wetsuit to boot!


Sometimes it takes a bit of encouragement to get going. It's nice to swim with a group who can give support and camaraderie along the way.


We were very grateful to have a TNT Teammate from last year and avid kayaker to accompany us on our swims!


Once we were done with the swim, our bikes were waiting for us. Team mentor Mike created this cool race-style bike rack. This definitely comes in handy for practicing transitions! Everyone took the time to dry off and warm up (not to mention eat up) before donning some cool weather biking clothes for the ride to Sunriver.The bike course for this race is just plain beautiful. I wish I'd had my camera on the course, it winds through pine forests with occasional views of lakes and snow-capped mountains. A few gently-rolling hills provide some distraction and a chance to stretch your legs but nothing to really discourage you. And the last few miles is all downhill into T2 on some nice smooth pavement!
We had a little excitement on the bike when one of our riders took a spill. I had been playing the sheepdog by biking back and forth between the tail and front of the line of cyclists, and after stopping to make sure everyone made the final big turn, we realized that our last cyclist hadn't come through the checkpoint. I turned back to find her, and as it turned out she had crashed and headed back to camp, giving me quite a scare as the miles spun under my wheels and I still didn't see her! Fortunately all was well and I caught a ride back up to the rest of the team and cruised the rest of the course with them. They all did great, and I think they are definitely more confident that they can all tackle this bike course (and enjoy the views along the way!)

That night, it was an awesome pasta dinner created by the team, and a campfire complete with s'mores, brownies, fresh strawberries, and other well-deserved yummies!


The next morning, the team geared up to go into town and run the course.... From their reports, it sounds like a nice run along the paths that wind through Sunriver. They all felt good about their run (especially after another toe-numbing swim that morning!)


Since my hubby couldn't come along with me, I stayed back in camp with the kids. Not wanting to miss out on a run, I did 10 loops through the campground with my kids on their bikes, about 6.5 miles. So I was with the team in spirit at least (and my kids slept good that night!)


All in all, it was a great experience for the whole team. We all enjoyed the beautiful course, the good company, and the satisfaction of knowing that we had tackled the distances and would be able to carry that confidence forward to race day. GO TEAM!

A Study In Contrasts

Fifty-two degrees. FIFTY-TWO DEGREES! That's what that blue water behind us registered on the thermometer. And that measurement was taken in the shallow, and relatively warm water, compared to the depths beyond (where it was maybe 49 or so). What I love though is how we're all in these nice thick rubber wetsuits freezing our butts off, and my kids are in.... yep... bathing suits! Gawd, to be a kid again. I used to swim in the Pacific Ocean in November in a speedo, now a lake like this just spells "ice cream headache".

But cold water aside, our TNT training weekend for Pacific Crest was a ton of fun. I'll have a full report later, with more photos. But suffice it to say, that lake was COLD!

Off to The Frozen Arctic

Well, we're not going above the arctic circle, but my Team in Training teammates and I are heading off to camp for the weekend at Wickiup Reservoir, site of their upcoming Pacific Crest triathlon. Only snag? It's supposed to be 38 degrees there tomorrow morning!! Oh, doesn't that make you just want to get in a wetsuit and climb into a lake? And then bike 28 miles? No? Me neither, LOL.

But we'll do it, for the same reasons I talked about in my "that's why they call you Ironman" post. Because sometimes to reach your goals, you have to do the hard things in life. At least I'm bringing S'mores fixings and firewood!

Waving To Italy

I don't spend a lot of time checking my blog stats, but every now and then I do and get a fun little surprise. Like this week I discovered that my nifty little triathlon checklist is being visited by bunches of Italian triathletes from a triathlon forum over there. So I thought I would just give a wave to all of you from this side of The Big Pond. Hello Italy!

My family and I will be biking through your lovely countryside on our tandems this September, which I am really looking forward to. I am even practicing my Italian daily so I don't have to say "Scusi, parlate inglese? Io parla italiano non molto bene" all the time. And if you're ever in Oregon, USA, drop me in line and I would love to give you a tour through our own beautiful cycling wine country!

A Vision of Bicycling Hell and a Ride to Heaven

Every cyclist's worst nightmare: This, at an intersection I passed on my bicycle six times that day. The cyclist was killed, not apparent yet who was at fault in the accident but the sad truth that when car and cyclist meet, it's the cyclist who is in danger, regardless of who is right and who is wrong.

So with all of that on my mind, I turned out of my driveway on my tri bike and hit my favorite ride: out into the wine country south of my home. Let me give you a little imagery of what it's like to bike out here in our neck of the country this time of year:

Rolling hills, green pastures, wild iris, poppies, roses, and apple blossoms, bird song: chickadees, varied thrush, red-wing blackbirds, meadowlarks, and the fluting melody of the tiny wrens. A whole flock of bright yellow golfinches burst from the bushes, a pheasant strolls with his awkward squawk across the road. 11 miles into the ride there's the hill. Still early enough in the season that I have to stand up and huff and puff my way up. Over the top I descend into a tiny valley covered with vineyards on the south-facing slopes, emerald pastures and wooded hillsides to the north. The dark slate clouds alternate with bursts of sun for dramatic lighting over all.

Bicycling Heaven.

Ride safely everyone.

NO EXCUSE FOR THIS

A drunken man plowed into an entire pack of cyclists in a bike race. WARNING: Do not go to this link if you are likely to be disturbed by a horrifying photo of a car slamming into a group of cyclists.

My heart goes out to the families and friends of the dead and injured cyclists, and to the survivors who surely will live with this day in their hearts the rest of their lives.

There is no excuse for this. None. I wish there was a universal zero tolerance on drinking and driving. There's just never ever any reason to operate a ton of moving metal under the influence of anything.

The Ride of Silence was just last week. It's so sad that it's necessary.

Triathlon Checklist

Google Docs now has the ability to post spreadsheets, doc files, and presentations online, so I thought I'd share my basic triathlon checklist. I print this list out and go over it the week before a race, leaving me plenty of time to buy anything I'm missing from the list. Then I use it to pack my gear bag up the night before, and I check everything off as it goes in the bag or the car. That way when I get up in the morning, I don't have the urge to go plowing through my bag to make sure I haven't forgotten anything. For some reason, some of the formatting got messed up when I imported it, but all the basic data is there. I give this list out to anyone I coach as well. Hopefully it may be useful to someone here.

How To Fail

I'm low right now, lower than dirt. Lower than the compressed layers of sedimentary rock that lies underneath the dirt. It's bad enough to fail yourself. That's not a fun thing. But those of you with kids know that nothing is worse than failing your kid.

Our karate dojo was having a "girls night out" sleepover. My daughter was soooooo excited, she's been counting down the days all week. They were going to have games and movies and pizza. I brought home the flyer and put the date on the calendar. You probably know what's coming, right?

I mixed up which night it was on. She got to karate this morning looking forward to the sleepover tonight, and it was last night. All twenty of her friends had just had their fun sleepover and were all talking about it this morning. She calls me on the phone just sobbing as I was out on my bike ride with the TNT team.

I feel like absolute and utter crap. Words fail me.

The only consolation available to me at the moment is that TriGirl Thea linked to Local Girl's very funny blog entry on FAIL, which in turn led to the incredibly funny FAIL Blog. Nothing like having a good laugh at other people's failures to almost let you forget your own. I've also promised my daughter a sleepover on the trampoline in sleeping bags tonight, complete with story-reading by flashlight. Small consolation I know, but thank goodness she has already forgiven me. It's considerably harder to forgive myself.

And That's Why They'll Call You An Ironman

I was in my karate class the other day when something that looked like a drowned rat in a plastic wrapper showed up. It was my karate training partner's husband, who had accidentally picked the rainiest day of the week for his 100 mile training ride for Vineman. It was cold, it was wet, it was windy, and he had 60+ miles left to go.

Since I was in the middle of class, I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but if I could've, here's what I would've said:

They don't just call you an Ironman because you cross the finish line after swimming 2.4, biking 112, and running 26.2.

They call you an Ironman because you get up when you don't want to

They call you an Ironman because you push past the feeling of wanting to give up

They call you an Ironman because you go out on your ride anyway, no matter the heat, the wind, or the rain

Because you move your body so long and so hard that you almost fall asleep on your feet at work.

Because you search the inner depths of what you are capable of, and reach for more.

They call you Ironman because that's what it takes to even make it to the starting line, let alone the one at the end of the race.

So Rich, although they won't say those specific words at the end of the Vineman, you'll be an Ironman nonetheless. Wishing you bluer skies for the rest of your long hard days...

A Summer Without Racing

So with that first and last hurrah, my racing season is officially done for the year. I haven't gone a summer without racing since I was pregnant with my almost-9 year old. I've promised my hubby that we'll take this summer and focus on bike touring with the kids, gardening, building a front porch onto our house, and getting everything ready for our bike trip in Italy in the fall. It's not like I'm complaining or anything, but I'm not quite sure I'm going to know what to do with myself. It's one thing not to race when you're pregnant, big as a beachball and too uncomfortable to run ten paces, it's another thing altogether when you're feeling froggy and full of energy.

I definitely have no plans to stop swimming, biking, and running. But I've always used my races as a focal point for my training. I'm not the kind of person who can go to a gym and hit the treadmill and exercise just for some nebulous goal like "staying in shape" or "having a good body". Good health, good shape, and great fitness are all side-effects of the triathlon lifestyle in my book. Hubby has started running with a running group, which is great for Mr. Talkative, who really loves having the company out there on the road, but it's not my thing. Still, his group is doing one of those 200-mile relay thingies and I'm going to be on their team for that. Which means I'll have to at least keep enough running fitness to go three 6-mile legs in the altitude (it starts at 7,000 feet) and heat of August. And swimming is never a problem because I so love swimming outdoors in the summer. My parents had to drag me by both feet out of any body of water larger than a puddle when I was a kid and I haven't changed much since then. And of course, we'll be on the tandem bikes all summer. So I guess I can make it through.

But you know, when I'm reading all of the triathlon blogs I love to follow, I'll be jealous of those race reports rolling in through the summer months. There's something so beautiful about testing your body out against a course and the other athletes out there. I don't know what it is, because there are many times when it doesn't feel all that terrific in the moment, and you're asking yourself why the heck you're not still in bed, but in the end I'm always grinning when I cross that finish line. I'll let you know how my withdrawals go...

The Meat is Rotten But the Vodka Is Good

When I was taking computer science classes in college, we read about a language translation program that had been developed. To test it, they ran some standard phrases through different languages and then back to English, and the results were hysterical. One that I still remember is that the phrase "The flesh is weak but the spirit is strong", which got translated into "The meat is rotten but the vodka is good." All humor aside, the original phrase could easily describe my triathlon yesterday.

Yep, I definitively proved that you really can't train to do an Olympic triathlon well on only about 5 hours a week. If you only swim once a week, have only done one bike ride over 25 miles this season, and have only a couple of 6 mile runs under your belt, guess what? An Olympic tri is going to hurt like hell. Interestingly enough, since I do a lot of other sports like karate and volleyball, and actually train about 15 hours a week total, my cardiovascular system was just fine. My heartrate never moved out of the aerobic zone, but my sports-specific muscles just couldn't respond the way they would've if I had been training properly.

Even the swim hurt. Now that's a new one on me! Usually I love the swim, it feels great to be out there in the lake and I just cruise along having a good time. But with coaching Team in Training taking up my other pool night and my Saturday morning Master's swim time, I've only been swimming Monday nights. Obviously. Not. Enough. The bike ride was gorgeous, but plainly just hurt. And people passed me on the bike who never pass me on the bike, {sigh}. My feet, still frozen from the 60 degree water and chilly morning bike ride were completely numb as I started running. I had to walk much of the first mile to let them thaw, because I was running oddly and my injured ankle started really hurting.

Now the good news is that this race, The Duck Bill Thrill is really a lovely little early season Olympic distance here in the Pacific Northwest. It was mostly local athletes with a few driving down from Portland. The field was overall quite fast, with mostly experienced athletes (the kind who get out and train in our lousy spring weather) making their early season appearances. The course was just gorgeous. The bike ride is rolling, with bubbling creeks, lake views, and even a ride through one of the area's many covered bridges. The run is also rolling, after a straight section right across the reservoir's dam. It's pretty and forested and I think ordinarily this would be a great course for me, rolling hills usually make for a strong race for me when I'm in decent condition for it.

All told, my time was relatively terrible: 2:49, when my end-of-season Oly last year was 2:28, yikes! But I didn't do too badly overall - 2nd in my age group and something like 12th or 13th woman. So this course is definitely not a super fast one, especially this early in the season and being wet on the hills and corners meant the bike course was slower than it could've been. The swim course was definitely marked long, and I think the run course was a little long too.

So overall, a lovely race, a gorgeous course, and one I should definitely put the time in to train for next year. I think I could really enjoy this race instead of having it, in the words of the John Cougar Mellencamp song which was, not surprisingly running through my head during the race, hurt so bad.

My New Lake Buddy

Last weekend was my mom's birthday, so we met up with her halfway between her house and ours (about an hour and a half drive for each of us) at the lovely Umpqua river. The great thing about my mom is you'd never know she's 67 years old, certainly not by her energy level! We met up, went for a beautiful hike to a waterfall, then we found this cute little reservoir and she pulled her kayak off of her car and took the kids kayaking around the lake. Mackenzie decided he wanted to try it out on his own and she let him borrow her kayak. He proceeded to pretty much monopolize it for the rest of the afternoon. By the end of the day, he was moving a kayak to the top of his next birthday list.

The fun bit was when I went for a swim and he kayaked alongside of me. He was quick to point out that one advantage of getting him his own kayak would be that whenever I want to do open water training, he could paddle along next to me. I have to admit, it was really fun to swim and watch him smoothly maneuvering through the water next to me. My mom is all for the idea. Being a mom (and I do understand now!) she always worried about me going out into these lakes by myself and swimming. You know, the Loch Ness Monster might eat me or something. And my hubby who is much more of a mother hen than I'll ever be pretty much feels the same way about it. So I've taken to scanning CraigsList for a Swifty kayak like my mom's, and maybe I'll have a little buddy to head out on the lake with me this summer!

So, here's to my mom: 67 years young, a hiking, kayaking, fun-filled dynamo of a lady. She's inspired me in so many ways, and she's a great friend.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Long Course Mornings

5:30 am, the alarm goes off. What to do, what to do.... hit the snooze, turn it off, get up and go swim.... It's hard to believe, but I got up to go swim! Now, you have to know that I don't swim in the early morning, it's an aversion developed in way too many college swim workouts at ridiculous hours in the Ante Meridian. But my friend K. talked me into it, wooing me with word of fifty meters of outdoor long course pool awaiting us.

Actually, it was glorious. Starting before the sun comes up, the steam rising off of the pool and all of those arms flashing through the water. The bottom of the pool looks periwinkle blue in the early morning light (is there anyone else who can't say the words periwinkle blue without cracking up over Brad Pitt's hysterical turn as Mickey in the movie Snatch: "And she's terribly partial to the periwinkle blue, boss.") I'd almost forgotten how fun it is to count 100's in just two lengths instead of four, and how nice it is to smell the fir trees in the early morning air and watch the flash of sunrise sparkle off of the water drops. Yeah, it even made the 5:30 wake up call worthwhile.

The Pressure Cooker

Bonny commented here with this question, and I think it's a really good one to think about so I'm posting it here for pondering:

do you have any advice for a 15yo girl who has trouble performing under pressure?

Her ability is REALLY *there.* Obviously developing still. She's only 15 LOL. But she doesn't do well under pressure. I think that most of her obstacles are mental ... and I'd love to see her work through some of this (and I know that any help she gets isn't going to heard if it's from her mama ...)

I've been actually thinking on this topic a fair bit lately, since all of my Team in Training folks are quickly approaching their Big Day and I've heard from more than one of them that nerves are starting to become a factor. I have a very distinct memory of the first time I felt really good and nervous and my mom told me I had "butterflies in the stomach", an expression I had never heard before. At the time, all I knew was that I hated the feeling, as I suspect most of us do. I also knew that I myself didn't perform well under pressure. As a kid, I could play something absolutely perfectly in practice and get all worked up and blow it in a performance. It took years and years to realize that becoming nervous under pressure can be a good thing once you learn how to channel that energy into the right direction.

In general, the folks who have the most trouble performing under pressure are perfectionists. We struggle because we so want everything to be just right. It can be an awesome trait to have, because perfectionists often work very hard at whatever they're doing, and can really blow you away with their abilities. On the other hand, perfectionism can be crippling when we let it get in the way of just doing something, even if it's not done perfectly. I love some of the things The Flylady has to say about this, especially her little mantra about housework done imperfectly still blessing the house. You can really extrapolate that to just about anything - anything we do imperfectly is still a blessing. It's hard for us perfectionists to recognize that, however. As a kid and a teen, I could occasionally be seen to fake something, anything (illness, injury, dog eating my homework) to excuse the fact that I hadn't done something perfectly. It can take many years, or even decades maybe for us to learn that it's okay. We can just do something. That's why I love bowling. I totally and utterly suck at it, and what's even better: I don't care. Bowling is the first thing that really saved me from perfectionism.

If we can get past a fear of making mistakes, then we can start channeling our nervous energy into the kind of energy that carries us through a race or performance. One technique that I use to direct that energy is that of positive visualization. In the days or weeks leading up to an event, whenever I become nervous about it and get that butterfly feeling, I stop and take the time to visualize myself performing in the event exactly as I would like myself to. If it's a race, I visualize myself feeling strong and smooth, moving through my transitions with ease, feeling relaxed and loose on the course, moving across the finish line with energy left to spare. The real key in visualizations for me is to make them as specific as possible. I really use my imagination to see everything exactly as I want it to go.

Another thing I find really helpful is to have little mantras that I repeat to myself. One from my competitive skydiving days is this little conundrum: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast, therefore slow is fast. That keeps me from getting amped up and wasting energy in random directions. Another mantra that I use whenever I start letting myself get whiny about whatever situation I'm in is: It's a privelege and a gift to be here today. So you're running and it's a million degrees outside and you have a blister and your Accelerade is sloshing around in your stomach and you want to puke?? Well, it's still a privilege and a gift to be doing that. It is, it really is. Sometimes it takes a few times of repeating that one for it to sink in to my brain though, LOL. Sometimes I have to remind myself of the passage in The Hiding Place where Corrie's sister Betsy says a prayer for the fleas of the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Now there's a book to remind one of what to be grateful for.

So these are the things I'll be talking over with my TNT folks in the upcoming weeks: letting go of perfectionism, creating positive visualizations, using mantras to remind ourselves of what is really important. Hopefully some or all of those will be helpful.

And This is Why I Coach

This last week I've done marker sets with my swimmers, both my Team in Training group and with the Swim Conditioning folks I'm teaching. It's always so very cool to see how much people improve and how excited they are! One of these years, I'm going to video every swimmer when they start with me, and then video them again six months down the road just so they can see the difference. I see it from the pool deck, but it's tough to put into words and "you're doing great!" just doesn't do it justice.

One of my TNT swimmers took two minutes off of her 500 yard timed swim in just a few weeks, another just blew right past his estimated time in the triathlon we both did this last weekend. Two of my guys from Swim Conditioning dropped 10 - 15 seconds and 5 - 10 strokes from their timed 100 yards! One of my guys there is now swimming a 1:25 for 100 yards, and his first 100 with me was 1:57. Now this is the reason I love to coach, when I can really help someone make a difference like that. Of course, it takes a whole lot of dedication and hard work on their part, and I'm just excited to be there helping them out with the details and technique.

I Run in the Heat and Hubby Does a Bun

Last weekend we had frost and snow levels down to 2800'. Today in my first tri of the season, it was 95 degrees (probably more on the nearly-shadeless run course). No time to train in the heat since it has been unseasonably chilly, but I ventured forth anyways with one of my Team in Training members, Steve who was doing his first tri ever! To give credit where credit is due, I could only do this race today because my ever-fearless hubby took our daughter to her Dance Team photos. This meant he had to do her hair and makeup. I can see all you men out there cringing now!! Plus, we don't call her the Diva Girl for nothing, she actually called a friend over to do her makeup (not trusting The Dad) but he managed to get her ready for her four costume changes and two hairdos. Now that's a man!

As for the race, it was a sprint, and since I've got an Oly next weekend the plan was to just train through this one. Nevermind that this plan has never ever worked out for me (the last time I did this, I gave myself a major quadricep injury just a couple of weeks before a marathon), reigning it in has never been my strong suit. But I'm older and wiser now, right? Well, I'm older at least. So I was shooting for a 1:15 as a reasonable time that should leave me fresh enough for next weekend's race. Surprisingly, I hit very close to this time with a 1:14:23.

This was a nice little race, the kind that just takes me right back to my first triathlon ever in 1986. Some sawhorses and metal bars set up in a parking lot, a few volunteers taking down your race numbers on corners (no timing chips) and a home-made banner for a finish line. Beautiful! I was excited to see Steve able to take advantage of such a nice homegrown race for his first, I think it's much more relaxing than facing a large and aggressive crowd of racers. Though there were some very fast folks here, it had a very friendly feeling.

Most of the race felt great for me. My swim was right on target, my 12.5 mile bike was on some of the most beautiful rolling green-hilled country roads I've ever seen (and with a gentle breeze, the temperature felt mercifully decent on the bike). My bike was 36:30, which is a great early season sprint time for me! The run was flat and should've been fast but my body just shuts right down in the heat. The muscles are willing but the brain-body connection is not. My first mile was about an 8:15, the 2nd was a 9:00, and I think the last was around 9:30. Not pretty, but I finished. I didn't stick around to see them sort all the results out as they were having troubles. I think I was 5th woman overall and probably 1st or 2nd in my age group.

Next week the temperature is mercifully going to go down to around 75, which should feel great!

A Big Blue Lake Beats a Bouquet

Hubby is not a Hallmark Holiday kind of a guy. I think another wife might even get disgruntled at the lack of bouquets, cards, or other trinkets. But the thing I really love about him is he knows me so well, he always finds the perfect gift. Like a Mother's Day camping trip where he says the magic words "Why don't you bring your wetsuit and we'll go to the lake." So Mother's Day found me on the edge of this gorgeous lake on the Oregon coast, not a boat to be seen, ready for my first open-water swim of the year.

I can't say it wasn't cold. While we're supposed to hit the 90's later this week, the night we went camping the freezing level dropped to around 2800'. The water was not exactly toasty but it was swimmable, which is all that really counts. I managed about 40 minutes before my toes refused to bend anymore. Of course my daughter, who has the impermeable skin of an eight year old, was jumping in wearing nothing but a pink bathing suit. I remember swimming in the ocean off of the Oregon coast at her age and never feeling cold, but now I can say I fully understand why my mom refused to join me - she didn't have a wetsuit of course!




















So after my swim my kids had a captive mom in a wetsuit, in a lake known for it's newt population. This time of year the little buggers are all hiding out in the weeds in the shallow parts (probably trying to keep warm) and I was dispatched to try an capture one or two. Not trying to brag too much, I do have to say that I have quite a reputation among my kids and their friends as a Newt Capturer. I have the requisate amounts of patience and can be still long enough for them to practically swim into my hand. So into the weeds I went and emerged with a newt or two for holding. The Oregon rough-skinned newts are actually poisonous. A small fraction of the poison found in the skin of an adult newt is enough to kill a human. Now as far as I've discovered, the only verifiable newt-related death was an intoxicated man from a coastal Oregon town who swallowed a newt on a dare. Still, it's not a good idea to handle one if you have any broken skin on your hands, and I always get my kids to wash their hands so they don't accidentally transfer newt poison to their noses or mouths.

All in all, it was a wonderful water-and-newt-filled Mother's Day. And at home the kids made me home-made cards (my favorite kind) and Asa drew this on the driveway for me:

Eureka, the Perfect Bar!

I've been looking for a very long time for a good real-foods energy bar that wasn't high in soy (which I can't eat due to only having half a thyroid gland - soy is a thyroid inhibitor), or powdered whey, which I think is of nebulous health value. Also a bonus would be made from actual whole foods, preferably organic, even better if it's raw. I've tried all of the different bars out there and finally found one that meets all of these criteria, plus tastes absolutely awesome!

So meet The Pro Bar. It's: delicious, organic, whole raw food, vegan, non-GMO and in short just about perfect. And it comes in flavors like Superfood Slam, Cran-Lemon Twister, Koka Moka, Cherry Pretzel, Maple Pecan, and my total favorite, Cocoa Pistachio (and several more flavors)... yummmmm!

Now my only caveat is that I haven't tried it out during intense exercise yet. Raw foods are often harder on the stomach in high-stress situations, so I may have to revert back to the always-digestible Powerbars during races (I once lived on Powerbars for three days above 15,000 feet while mountaineering when I couldn't choke down a single other thing, so I know this for a fact: I can always eat a Powerbar). But for all other times, this will be my bar of choice. The hardest thing is to leave them in my backpack for workouts and not just snarf them for lunch. Yep, they're that good!

Cool Treats for Warmer Weather Workouts

Here's a terrific, easy, nutritious post-workout treat for the hot weather to come. Take two cans of pineapple and one can of coconut milk and throw them together in a blender. Whirl them up and pour into a container and put it in the freezer. Voila! Instant pineapple coconut gelato. If you need it a little sweeter, you can throw in a tablespoon or two of your favorite sweetener, but I've found that it doesn't need much. It's got a great consistency due to the coconut milk, but mostly tastes like pineapple. Yummm! The problem around here is the kids eat it up before I can even get to it!

Happy Happy Joy Joy

Endorphins and bicycle wheels go hand in hand in my life. There's something incredibly joy-producing about being on a bicycle for me, especially once the weather gets warm enough to ride in shorts. Oh the happiness of not being bundled up like an arctic explorer just to go for a ride. It's a mystery to me why that "runner's high" so rarely happens when I'm running, but pops out almost the moment I get on a bicycle. And it doesn't seem to matter what kind of bicycle it is - tooling around town on my junker, or out on a tandem ride with the kids, or on my lovely piece of rolling titanium tri-bike (the one my daughter dubbed "Hi Ho Silver"). It seems that any bike will do. I can wax nostalgic about past bikes, too: my college cruiser, with one gear and pedal-backwards braking. I bought it for $25 and spray-painted it red, rode it for four solid years and then sold it for $75 because cruisers had just then come back into style.

Going into a bike store is like heaven and torture at the same time. I could probably use about five more bikes - a touring bike for sure, a much-cooler updated cruiser with comfy seat and town gearing, a recumbent just because they look like fun, a road bike just in case I ever take up riding with a group, oh the list goes on.

So this week the warm weather came out, presumably just for another teaser because now it's cold as an icebox again. I got to do the first real brick of the season with some of my TNT teammates. We did some hill repeats and then an easy run. Went out on a longer ride with another TNT teammate and enjoyed my favorite rolling route along the river. There were these huge black clouds threatening us, which had me worried because I had forgotten to bring any sort of jacket at all, and lately when those black clouds show up they dump either buckets of hail or torrents of water! But a fortunate little blue hole appeared above us and followed us for the entire ride, only to close up as we reached the end when it started to hail. Lucky! I'm woefully underprepared for my first Oly distance race this year in (gulp) 3 weeks, but with the weather and my crazy schedule this winter/spring, I'm just going to have to tough it out and survive it, I think.

Wishing you happy pedaling this week!

Get Your Swim On For That Spring Sprint

Here's a good main set for working on speed for a 500 - 800 yard swim in one of the spring sprint distance tris that are popping up like daisies this time of year...

3 x
{2 x 200
2 x 100
2 x 50}

I did this one tonight, and tried to make the 100's add up to less time than the fastest 200, and the 50's add up to less than the fastest 100. Then I tried to make each of the three sets a little faster than the last. It looks like a simple set, but it turned out to be fairly tough in the end!

The Evil Fairies Are At It Again

I don't know how this happens to me, it isn't the first time the evil fairies have visited me but this time they've gone too far. I have a card I use to get into the club where I teach swimming. I put it in a small pocket on the outside of my backpack. This pocket only has three things in it - my card, my lock & key, and my iPod. One day, I go to get out my card at the front desk and it's not there - it's very obviously not in this pocket. This pocket only carries three things, and the card is not one of them at this point. I look everywhere for it - in pockets, in the washing machine, in my bike panniers, on my desk. It's nowhere. For a few weeks, I sign in on the shameful "missing card" sign-in sheets at the front desk, hoping it will just magically turn up, but I eventually admit defeat and get another card, for which I'm probably charged $5 or so out of my ridiculously tiny paycheck.

So I've been using my new card for a couple of weeks now and yesterday I go to the club and pull out my card, and two cards come of of the pocket together - my new one and my old one, as if I'm a magician pulling a bunny out of a hat. The only logical explanation are that there are tiny evil fairies whose sole mission in life is to torture me with stuff like this. I mean, I know I'm slightly disorganized and a little cluttery and messy, and I do lose things from time to time only to find them later in a completely different place. But this time I can't help but feel that they're mocking me. There's no way, NO WAY I tell you, that this card was in that pocket before yesterday. The evil fairies are probably somewhere sitting on a mushroom and toasting each other with dandelion wine this very instant, laughing at my expense.

How to Scare the Heck Out of the Swim Coach

So I'm on the pool deck, coaching my Monday night Swim Conditioning class, and something on my radar screen just goes off. I look over at the hot tub and my heart stops cold. There's a body floating motionless in there. Semi-casually, so as not to freak anyone out, I hold the class up a minute and walk briskly over to check it out. As it turns out, it's just a lady who enjoys relaxing in the hot tub in kind of a dead-man's float position. Whew!

I'm always amazed at how quickly that radar reacts to small changes in the environment, especially around the pool. I pulled a kid out of the hot tub once that I wasn't even consciously aware was there. I was lap swimming and almost not of my own volition I vaulted out of the pool toward the hot tub. My subconscious brain had noticed that there was a kid there, and then there wasn't. He was under water and his mom (sitting just a few feet away) had not noticed. With the bubbles on, you couldn't even see him under the water. Scary! I guess once a lifeguard always a lifeguard. Sometimes when I'm at the pool in the summer with my kids, I find myself counting noses in the pool and keeping track of the bathing suits: "1,3, 7, 9, kid in red suit...yep... blue trunks....pink ponytail...orange duckie....11, 14...." and I won't even notice I'm doing it.

So my heart is back to normal now, and at least you know if you ever swim or even float prone in the hot tub on my watch, you're safe.

Jonesing For A Swim

I needed to swim tonight like a junkie might need a fix after a week of going straight. I love biking, I like running, but swimming is my habit and when I get as stressed as I was today, I need my fix dammit. So although my to-do list was ten feet long and growing, I took the time to get in the pool and now I feel almost sane. By 6:00 am tomorrow morning, we'll be headed for the airport to Atlanta to the FIRST World Robotics Festival. We've got five kids, two robots, a ton of spare parts, research project presentations, pit table decorations, team t-shirts, trading cards and give-aways, and of course the kids' iPods, Nintendos, laptops, books, and other assorted paraphenalia. I don't think Hannibal carried this much stuff across the Alps, and he had elephants for pack animals. We only have a couple of parents to do the job. Wish us luck, and cross your fingers that the hotel has a good pool. I'm gonna need it!

Cadence and Old Punk Vinyl

Running cadence is one of the least debated bits of running technique. Unlike a forward lean or midfoot vs. forefoot vs. heel striking, running books, coaches, triathletes and runners themselves are almost unilateral in their praise of running cadence and insistence that every runner should be running at a cadence of around 88 - 92. I have been working on my running cadence for a couple of years, and have posted questions about cadence at places like the Trifuel forums, normally a font of wisdom on all subjects to do with triathlon training. What I've heard back is unilateral praise for the merits of high cadence. Even when I've asked questions about whether or not this is feasible for slower runners or for some of the heavier Clydesdale-class athletes I've been coaching, the answer has been that a high cadence is good across the board.

Unfortunately, this advice hasn't matched up with my experience, which is that for runners who are slower than about 10 minutes a mile, a high cadence is very hard or impossible to achieve. And it's not a matter of just practicing it more, it just doesn't seem to work. At the triathlete coach's seminar, Dave Scott was talking about cadence and I asked him this question. He said that over about a 9 minute mile, runners usually can't sustain a cadence of 90. Just one more little nugget of wisdom that I gleaned from that training. As I said earlier, this stuff has been percolating through my brain as I've been training and coaching and these kernels of insight have been popping to the top.

For me, the cadence issue has been both a saviour and a bugaboo. A saviour in the sense that developing a higher cadence finally has enabled me to run off of the bike effectively in my sprint and Olympic distance races. I can keep about a 8 minute per mile pace in these shorter races and the high cadence and shorter stride has helped me transition from biking to running more smoothly with much less effort on my legs. So all of the high cadence work I was doing has been very helpful in that regard. But on my slower paced runs (I'm about a 9-minute miler for a half-marathon, and 10 minutes per mile at the marathon distance), I struggled with implementing the higher cadence. It always seemed to drive my heartrate up, and I could never reconcile the higher cadence with the heartrate needed for the longer distances. So what Dave Scott said rang completely true from my own experience - the 9 minute mile is about where I lose the ability to keep my cadence high. Finally, some cadence advice in running that makes sense to me! This will also help me immensely in coaching my newer runners and Clydesdale runners, for whom a 10 minute mile is still a distant goal.


So with all of this in mind, I set out on a tempo run this week, and was searching through eMusic.com for a useful set of tunes to bolster my higher cadence. I came across this album, Someone's Gonna Ger Their Head to Believe, which was perfect. As I was listening through the album preview, a wave of good old nostalgia washed over me. This album is a compilation of most of the best early American Hardcore punk, brought together on an album called Someone Got Their Head Kicked In, from the seminal punk year of 1982. They've combined it with most of the best tracks from another compilation, 1984's Something to Believe In, and ended up with an album containing many of the best US Hardcore tracks ever layed on good old-fashioned vinyl. I have both of these albums somewhere in my moldering vinyl collection, but I'm not one of those folks who still have their record players. So to find it easily downloadable in an MP3 format on a day when I needed a jolt for a tempo run was a Godsend. Youth Brigade, Aggression, Battalian of Saints, Bad Religion, Adolescents, Social Distortion, Seven Seconds - this album is definitely a soundtrack of my teenage years.

Our city's weekly newspaper just did an article on the re-emerging trend of House Concerts. When I was a teen, they were in full swing in our town, and I was happy to note that the article mentioned my old house as one of the early venues for house concerts in our town that has apparently renewed itself as a music venue. Three friends and I rented a house we called "The Greenhouse" (not surprisingly, for the paint color) in 1985 and nailed mattresses over the basement windows. Our band practiced there and a number of the best hardcore bands in the world played there over the year or so that passed between signing the rental contract and getting kicked out for having a bunch of homeless kids living in our basement. It's funny to walk downtown and see a marquee for bands like NOFX and remember selling tickets at my own back door and begging people not to drink beer on the lawn facing the street.

So my tempo run was bolstered by fast tracks and good memories, and the mystery of why I can't hold that faster cadence on my distance runs has been solved. On Tuesday I leave with my kids and our robotics team en route to the World Robotics Festival in Atlanta, Georgia. This might be the last missive from me until we get back a week from now. Until then, rock on....

And They Win By A Spike....

First volleyball game of the spring season last night. I had to sit out all last season because of that blasted sprained ankle, and was more than a little trepidatious about playing on it. It felt really tight at first in the Achilles, but loosened up and didn't bother me at all after that - hooray! First game we took easily (I can't believe all my serves went in), second game we totally lost (15 - 5, how is that possible), third game came down to rally scoring and only a few minutes left, and we were tied up and it went back and forth until we won it on a spike... by me! Hooray, I can jump again! One more sport I can enjoy once more, four months is a long time to take off from something this fun.

Working From the Core

For years, I've been talking with my swimmers about trying to swim from the core, instead of from the arms and feet. Although we use our core muscles for power in almost every other sport (think of a golfer winding up a swing, or a quarterback twisting that arm way back for the Hail Mary pass), when people swim they often tend to be rather flat in the water, moving only their arms and legs. If they're not flat, they're over-rotating their hips to the sides (often influenced by the Total Immersion method) along with their torso. These styles are the equivalent of giving Barry Bonds a baseball bat and asking him to either hit without moving his hips at all, or asking him to move his hips parallel to his shoulders. In neither case would he be able to muster up enough power to send one out of the park (stand up and try it with an imaginary bat if you don't see what I mean).

So I've believed for a long time that the power in a swimming stroke comes from twisting that core, and while the hips will twist too, to a certain extent, rotating them too far will take some of that power away. The human core is like a gigantic spring of muscles which can store a lot of energy once it is twisted and then unleashed. The bummer is that it's hard to describe this to people and have them just get it and be able to translate it to their swimming stroke.

One of the most exciting drills I learned last weekend was something that I think will really help swimmers feel this concept. We were doing a drill that's something like paddling on a surfboard - arms are flexed at right angles and you're paddling with a very flat and short stroke, with no rotation of the torso at all. One of the things this works on is setting that high elbow catch as well (two birds with one stone here). With the next step, you add rotation of the shoulders, but pretend there's a coffee cup balanced on your hips that you don't want to spill. That lets swimmers feel their torso rotating independently from their hips. Just using these drills the other night with my swimmers, many of them were able to have one of those great "aha" moments where they could feel the muscles they needed to be moving in order to start generating power from their core instead of just from their arms. I love it when that happens.

If you watch videos of great swimmers, like this one of Grant Hackett, you can see the rotation of the upper core, independent from the hips that I'm talking about, and how much power comes from that rotation.

Still Digesting

I spent this last weekend at the Team in Training coaches seminar, given by Dave Scott. It was a pretty intense 2 days of workshops, hands-on technique coaching, and a lot of information. I'm still digesting it all, but you can probably expect to see things start popping out here in this blog that I learned over the weekend. The swim drills were the part I was most excited about, and I wasn't disappointed there. I came away with some new tools for helping my swimmers understand better stroke mechanics. Oh yeah, and I got a killer quick tour of all the wonderful Washington D.C. sights, including an early run down to see the sunrise over the Washington and Lincoln monuments. Unforgettable!

Training With Kids: Part 1

After reading The Dread Pirate Rackham's interesting insights into Training With 5 Year Olds, I thought I'd riff off of that and offer up a few bits of wisdom (or not, you decide) I've discovered over the years of training and racing as a mom with young kids.

Early Years (0-3):

Accessories Are Your Friends

When friends at our church offered to throw us a baby shower for our first-born, the only thing I really wanted and needed was a running stroller. I'd already gotten a heap of cloth diapers, we'd planned to have the baby sleep with us, and with a pair of boobs already in place there was no feeding equipment necessary. So they had a money tree and bought us this great running stroller. Later, we added a Burley bike trailer and a Rhode Gear Limo bike seat to our stash and I was ready to roll with the baby. Unfortunately, the baby had other plans, which brings me to....

Be Flexible

Our son was one of those "extremely high needs" babies that you hear about and secretly wish won't happen to you. Never slept (so neither did I), hated the car seat, the stroller, the bike trailer, and anything that didn't involve being bounced up and down in the sling or nursing 24 x 7. We learned later that he had Sensory Integration Dysfunction (the world was too loud, too bright, too rough, too scary for the little guy) and also food allergies. So our world was turned upside down. Being flexible was the key to getting anything accomplished at all. For many months I couldn't swim - he would start screaming in the daycare at the gym and the ladies would have to come and get me out of the pool. Running sometimes worked out, sometimes not. Sometimes I had to take him out of the stroller and nurse or bounce him once a mile. Being flexible helped me find creative ways to workout whenever I could grab a minute, and I completed my first post-baby triathlon when he was 10 months old, so it all worked out in the end. His needs got met, mine got met, and though I wasn't the active mom-on-the-go I'd pictured myself to be ahead of time, we both were fine. Our second baby was happy as a clam at the gym, in the stroller, or wherever we wanted to drag her along, so things were actually easier with two kids than they were when I just had one. I found that a lot of working out with a baby is finding ways to work with the particular baby you happen to have!

Title Nine Sports Rocks

You might even be too young to know what Title Nine refers to (Google it, girlfriend), but this is hands-down the best place to buy running bras online. When what your husband might happily refer to as the "Boob Fairy" visits, it can be downright upsetting for an athlete who is not used to worrying about the Bounce Factor. Title Nine has a 1, 2, and 3-barbell rating system for bounce control, and sells everything from the Superwoman bra to The Last Resort bra. Don't worry, these things do go back down in size (husbands can get disappointed now), though they may never return to their pre-baby size.

Get Your Workouts In While You Can

When our 2nd kid came along, I got smart and bought a bike trainer and an indoor elliptical machine, so I could work out if they were napping, or I could put on a video for them and get some exercise time in. I would run in the mornings, the evenings, whenever my husband was available for kid duties. We moved to a new town and I started biking everywhere with the kids - trips to the library now doubled as a workout. You might think that miles around town on an old beater bicycle don't count, but I've discovered otherwise. Looking through my last season's journals, I never logged more than five hours on my road bike per week, but managed a 1:09 Olympic distance bike time and a 2:52 Half-Iron bike split, mostly due to a lot of bike commuting and tandem riding with my kids.

There Will Always Be Another Season

As trite as it might sound, babies grow up very quickly. At times, it can sure be frustrating to try to train and compete as a parent of very young kids. But looking back, I'm glad that I made the switch to "triathlete lite" during those years when my kids were babies and young toddlers. It went by all too fast as it was, and while I kept my feet wet with swimming, biking, and running whenever I could, and always did a couple of tris a season, I didn't really turn my head back to getting serious about tris until they were about 5 and 8 years old. By that time, they could ride bikes beside me while I ran, and each of them has done their own triathlon now so they know what it's all about.

Oooooh, Uggghhh, First Brick of the Season

How is it that I can forget every year what it feels like to run off of the bike? I ran for 30 minutes after Saturdays 1:00 Team in Training bike ride, and that first mile was a killer. A couple of years ago I learned that high cadence on the run off of the bike makes a big difference for me in getting through that first mile and luckily I kept that in mind this time around and I always feel better after that first 8 minutes or so. It will be a short and fast Tri season for me this year, probably one sprint and one Oly distance tri is all I'll be fitting in this spring. So I can concentrate more on speed than long distance for the first time in a few years.

More On That High Elbow Catch

Here's a great video that demonstrates the high elbow catch with Sheila Taormina. Another one show's Ian Thorpe's high elbow. And here's a great swim technique video that touches on several points (including the catch) from Dave Scott.

A Swim Workout To Be Eager For

Since starting as the Team in Trainng coach, I've missed my Saturday morning Master's swim workouts, so I have to be content to just do the Master's workout on my own steam when I go in to swim (not nearly so much fun, I have to say).

This weeks' was a good one though. If you want a tough set that will keep your technique tight, try this out:

6 x 100 Fast
2 x 50 Focus on technique
5 x 100 Fast
2 x 50 Technique
4 x 100 Fast
2 x 50 Technique
3 x 100 Fast
2 x 50 Technique
2 x 100 Fast
2 x 50 Technique

Total: 2500 yard main set. I really enjoyed this set as I felt able to swim the fast 100's with really good technique and not let it degrade over the course of such a long and hard set. The good news is that my swim times are continuing to improve. Though my right ankle is still not anywhere near 100%, I am back to a good pace for my fast 100's, stillabout 5 seconds (per 100) off of my pre-injury pace, but much better than a month ago!

It's encouraging to see the speed trickling back in, and although my shoulders are still sore after every swim workout, the new "barrel catch" I mentioned in this previous post is coming along nicely and I can feel the power there that I know will grow over the next six months as my muscles adapt. I can now pull with the pull buoy at a 1:26 average pace, where I was never able to go below 1:30 before (my kick is still a big part of my stroke, I guess I'll never be a true long distance swimmer!), and I think that's all due to that new catch.

Eagerness, The Next Level

After our karate belt tests, Albert Sensei who runs our dojo always has everyone sit down for a pep talk. You never hear the kids moan or groan about it either because he's such a dynamic and engaging speaker and what he has to say is always meaningful in a personal way. Yesterday he was talking about levels of commitment - Obedience, Willingness, and then Eagerness. He stressed that he wants all of us at the dojo to not just be willing to practice karate, or participate in anything in life (even taking out the garbage) but instead be eager to do it.

It got me thinking about my mindset and how it affects my training. For years, I was such a reluctant runner. I only ran because I had to in order to compete in triathlons. I was somewhere between obedient and willing to do it, but I was never ever eager. I would even tell people that I only ran because they had no Swim/Bike duathlons. Then a couple of years ago I decided I really wanted to become a better runner. I asked good runners and coaches about their favorite drills, I checked out books like Chi Running, and I really put some effort into my runs. I did hills, I did strides, I did form drills. And you know what? I not only became a better runner, but I really began to like running. I became, in fact, eager to go for a run. Now that I'm suffering through the rehabilitation of my sprained ankle, I've even found that I've missed running.
















There are so many areas of life that one can work on the eagerness factor. Last night, my husband and I cooked a meal together. To say I'm a reluctant chef would not be overstating the case at all. I actually love to cook and am really pretty good at it (my grandfather even owned his own restaurant, so I must have some cooking genes in there somewhere), but I hate deciding what to make and I hate the mess it makes in the kitchen (that's my engineering brain talking there). But we've decided that, in honor of our upcoming trip to Italy, Saturday nights will be "Italian Night" in our house this year. I checked out the Everyday Italian cookbook from the library, and last night Wayne tackled making a grilled seafood salad (with squid and scallops) and I made a mushroom risotto that was quite heavenly. And we really enjoyed ourselves, you could even say I was eager to get cooking! We all went to the store together and picked up fresh ingredients, stuck an Italian language learning CD in the player and repeated "buona serra" to each other as we cooked.

This week, my aim will be carrying this eagerness forward into all areas of my life. There's no real point in doing anything grudgingly, when you can actually enjoy it (even running, or cleaning up after our Italian feast.

So, How Lucky Am I ??

When I joined this amazing sport of triathlon in 1986, I was just occupied with trying to stay on my bike without falling over in my toeclips, and finishing the run without walking. Meanwhile, on the international scene, Dave Scott was busy winning his 5th Ironman. Ten years later in 1996 as I temporarily hung up my running shoes during the summer of my first pregnancy, he was coming out of retirement for the 2nd time to place again at the Big Show in Hawaii. He's definitely an icon in the sport, and someone who is still actively competing but also coaching, consulting, commentating, and speaking about triathlon.

He's also the National Advisory triathlon coach for Team in Training, and he'll be conducting the coach training session that I'm going to in two weeks! So, how lucky am I?

And by the way, I'll be a nervous wreck come the end of this month - the training is all the way across the country in Washington D.C., and will be the first time ever that I've gotten on an airplane and flown away from my babies. Okay, well they're hardly babies. My big guy borrows my shoes and just got braces, my not-so-little gal grew an inch this month and regularly updates my iPod with bands I haven't even heard of. But still. Yeah, they'll be fine. I'll be a wreck. Luckily, I have the fact of getting to go learn how to be a better tri coach from Dave Scott to keep me cheered up!

Power Juice

Everyone around me is sick, getting over being sick, or starting to get sick. So here's my power drink for the week:

1/2 glass carrot juice
Fill rest of glass with water
Stir in 2 tsp. pomegranite syrup
Dump in a packet of Emergen-C to make it fizzy and high in Vitamin C

Yumm!! My kids think I'm crazy, but I think it's pretty darned good. I'm also cooking about 5 cloves of garlic in everything I make this week. Hopefully the combo will ward off the bugs.

I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I Think I Can

You remember reading that corny story about the Little Engine Who Could when you were a kid? My son was so into trains that I read any book with a train theme to him approximately 10,000 times. So I read "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can" many times over those years. Yesterday in karate we were doing pushups and our sensei had us yelling with each pushup "I...am...a...future...black...belt" over and over. The ol' Power of Positive Thinking gig. Sometimes we can let ourselves believe that this kind of stuff is "just BS" or really doesn't work. But lately I've seen the results of positive thinking in a big way that confirmed what I've known anecdotally throughout my life.

Just recently, the kids on my robotics team have shown me all over again what kind of power you have when you refuse to be told you can't do something. I have to admit, as they dreamed big about going to the World Championships, there was that nagging adult voice in my brain that said "Don't let them get their hopes up too high or they'll be disappointed." So I tried to be the voice of reason, I tried to tell them that the odds were big, we were one small, relatively new team out of 10,000 teams worldwide. It was all stacked against us, but I was all for them trying. But they knew better. Somehow, they knew that they could do this. When I gathered them together at a local ice cream shop and told them the exciting news, there was no outburst of surprise. They blinked a few times and then smiled. They knew. They knew they could do this all along. I was the one who was not with the game, and that's a great lesson for me to take away. We can do so much more than we think we can if we refuse to let ourselves be limited.

This week, I checked out the DVD of Rudy from the library for our family to watch. If you love sports, any kind of sports, or cinderella stories, you've got to check out Sean Astin in this role. It's not a recent movie, but it's the true story of a kid who really wouldn't take no for an answer. From a blue collar family, he dreamed that one day he would play football for Notre Dame. Despite economic & educational obstacles and his own short stature, he refused to stop believing in his dream, and you know, he accomplished it too.

When I think about my Team in Training team members, the obstacles they're facing and overcoming on a daily basis, it inspires me. I love getting phone calls like the ones I got this week from team members: "I swam and it felt effortless!", "I ran for over an hour, can you believe that!", and all of this just because people think they can do something as amazing as a triathlon!

So yes, when my karate sensei has us all hollering about being a blackbelt, I'll yell it out "loud and proud" as they say in class. Because I do believe it. I can already see that black belt out there in my future, just like my kids could see that world championship in front of them. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....

A Trip to Seattle and Some Amazing News

We took a short trip to Seattle this week for my sister's birthday. It was beautiful there, reminding me of what a lovely city Seattle is when it's not raining. The snow-covered Olympics and the glassy blue Lake Washington greeted us as we spent a day wandering around the Woodland Park Zoo. I got to run with my sister - it's great to have a little sis' who is active and fun to hang out with. An hour's run gave us plenty of time to catch up, and was the first time I've run more than 4 or 5 miles since my ankle sprain. I had to walk up the steeper hills due to some lingering tenderness in my Achilles tendon, but otherwise was fine!

While we were there, I got this amazing phone call from the woman in charge of Oregon's FLL Robotics program. She told me that the kids' robotics team (that I've been coaching) was nominated to go to the FLL World Festival! They'll be competing with 84 other teams from all over the world (of the 10,000 FLL teams worldwide) in Atlanta, Georgia in mid-April. This will be just an amazing opportunity for my kids and the rest of the kids on our team as well. We are so excited!

It's not looking like this will be a year of triathlons for me. In fact, it's looking like it will be an extremely light tri season with everything else we've got going on. Maybe that's okay though. The last time I took a season off was 1999 when I was pregnant with my daughter, and after 9 years maybe it's time to have another little break.