Why To Eat Your Facial

Let me state for the record that I am not a foofy girl. I don't do my nails, get perms, go to the mall, obsess over shoes (well, unless running shoes count), or know how to tell a Coach handbag from any other purse. So when my daughter said we were doing a Spa party for her birthday, and I would be doing facials and "mani pedi's" (whatever that is) and henna tattoos for a gaggle of girls, I was, let's just say, a little trepidatious.

However, she found some good natural recipes for facials, and I actually do have an Art Degree so I figured I could probably handle the henna designs, so away we went. We mashed up a bunch of avocados and bananas, added some almond oil and honey, and smeared it on all the girls' faces with the requisite cucumbers on the eyelids. The trouble was, she misread the recipe by about a factor of ten and we had gallons of the stuff left over.

So I did what any self-respecting smoothie-chugging athlete would do: I froze the rest for my smoothies. I'd heard that avocado was great in smoothies but never bothered to give it a try until now.

They say that beauty comes from within. As long as "they" are not a cosmetics company, that is. Or a "women's magazine", or an advertising firm. All of those theys are dependent on making sure we think beauty is a thing that we apply to our face in order to firm/shape/diminish/accentuate/hide some feature or another.

But there's another kind of "within" that's important, and that's what we put into our bodies in the form of fuel. And that's exactly why a facial is better off being something you eat than something you smear on your skin. Ingredients like avocado, coconut and almond might show up on a beauty product label, but when you put them in your smoothie or salad, they do a lot more good.



So here's my recipe for a Smoothie Facial:


2 bananas
1/2 avocado
1 tsp honey
2 Tbs almond oil
2 raw eggs
1 Cup coconut milk or almond milk
1 tsp vanilla bean extract
10 ice cubes

Blend it all up and drink it instead of applying it to your face. If you really do feel like gooping your face up, omit the ice cubes and bring out the cucumber slices.

I am Every Mom, You Are Every Mom

I was sniffling back tears when I read my email this morning. The reason I started this blog is that I wanted to reach out to moms (and dads, and regular folks) everywhere and let them know that if they just start down this path, start putting one foot in front of the other, they can do amazing things. We are capable of not only transforming our bodies, but our spirits and our souls by challenging ourselves to do more than we think we can.

So when my email notified me of a new comment on my Training Plan blog entry, I read it with excitement, knowing it was probably from someone who had questions or comments about the plan. The comment I found there brought tears to my eyes. Go read the comments section now and tell me if you're not inspired! If that doesn't leave you with a feeling of "I can do this", I don't know what will. I think I will be smiling all day after reading that!

It also motivates me to keep adding to the training resources on this blog, so you might notice a new tab at the top, Everymom's Training Resources.  This link contains the essential posts to starting your journey to your first triathlon. I will be putting up an Off-season training plan soon, and this next spring I will be adding an Olympic distance training plan, for those of you like Laura who raced with me at Iron Girl  Lake Tahoe, who feel so confident from their Sprint triathlon experiences that they want to try something longer.

As always, please comment with questions, feedback, and anything you want to see here on the blog. It's called "Everymom to Ironmom" for a reason,  I want it to be about our journeys together.

Countdown to Ironman, Week 37: Training Buddies and Getting Psyched

What triathlete doesn't feel their blood stir while watching the Kona IM Championships? Even total couch potatoes have been known to rise up like Lazarus swearing "I will do that!" and for some, the Iron Fever is strong enough that they do, transforming their life in the process. For me this year, it's all part of the building excitement of my own coming Ironman. Although I do go through entire days where I don't think about the Ironman (not many, mind you), once you sign up for one it's never far from the front of your mind.

This weekend I got to watch the start of the Kona race down at our local triathlon store, The Multisport Advantage. Just the fact that a town our size (130,000 people) even HAS a triathlon store is a real blessing. But this one has some very cool stuff, including a Computrainer MultiRider setup with eight bikes all connected to one Computrainer screen. While they were having some technical difficulties with the computer on Saturday, I still got a taste of how fun it would be to train all winter with that kind of triathlete fellowship and fun. I already knew several of the folks there from training and racing here, and I think that would be the perfect antidote for trying to train in our cold and rainy winter weather. This photo is from their website so you can see their cool setup:

I'll definitely be hauling my bike down there as often as I can to get in some indoor miles without the typical drudgery of the trainer in my basement. They even have the Ironman Coeur d'Alene course so I can see exactly how much torture I'll be in for ahead of time (and hopefully be adequately prepared).

In other news, my swimming is starting to come back. While even a few weeks ago I found it hard to turn a 100 yards in less than 1:35, we did some sets on Saturday of descending 100's in groups of four, and I posted 1:28, 1:23, 1:20, 1:17 as my splits for each descending set. And that was leaving a full five seconds after my lane mate (even though he has the best draft in the pool, so it's mighty tempting to hug his toes). Toward the end of the workout, my left arm started fatiguing out, especially on the pull sets, but all in all it is holding up better and better each time. There are some days now when I forget it's not fully recovered yet in terms of strength, and those days should get more numerous over the winter, leaving me back to full force by spring.

Steve Jobs' Words for Living

As a young computer science student in the early 1980s, Steve Jobs was one of the great icons. I vividly remember watching Apple's 1984 commercial launching the Mac, and the impression it made on me. The first home computer I worked on was a Macintosh (a 128k jobbie that you had to switch a floppy disk on a thousand times to do anything) and I spent many long nights in the Macintosh-lined computer lab programming in Pascal and being ever so grateful that we no longer had to program on the VRT screens of the mainframe, or even worse - as our professors reminded us - on the punchcards that loomed in the not-so-distant programming past. Though I eventually ended up working at Microsoft and entering the world of Windows,  I have always been impressed with Steve Jobs' work and his vision.

This speech of his is worth watching (or re-watching) for the insights he brings to the business of life and the wisdom that comes from facing your own death.

RIP Steve Jobs, so few people can truly say they changed the whole world, but you were one of them.

My Escape From Vegetarianism

I've been meaning to write about my transition from vegan/vegetarian to omnivore to Paleo for awhile, it's such an important step that I took for my own health. Yet at the same time, it's a very personal decision and one that for many people approaches a religious or spiritual level. To other vegetarians, I know that any time a former vegetarian speaks about their negative experiences with vegetarianism, it can feel almost like an insult to their own beliefs. Which is why people like Lierre Keith who have spoken out publicly (and in her excellent book, The Vegetarian Myth) have been violently attacked for doing so. So it's not easy finding the right words to describe my own personal experience.

In a way, it was watching the graphic elk hunt scene in the documentary I, Caveman on the Discovery Channel's Curiousity program that sparked me to finally sit down and write about my own experience. Watching that scene would've been impossible for me as a vegetarian. The idea that something beautiful and sentient like that majestic elk would have to die in order for a human to eat was a reality that was too painful for my animal-loving sensitive brain to handle. I was the kid who turned off Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom when the lions started hunting the zebras on the African plains. I didn't know then that any time we eat, we are creating the death of something, whether we know or acknowledge it or not.

Like so many soft-hearted, tree-hugging, animal-loving idealistic young women, my journey into vegetarianism started as a teenager, that age when our emotions and our logical brains are so intertwined as to be inseparable. And herein lies the rub: all of us who have been vegan and vegetarian are doing it for all the right reasons. At least we think we are. We love the planet, we adore animals. We save stray cats, we rescue spiders from our homes and move them carefully outside in glass jars, we pick up snails off the sidewalk for heaven's sake. My running partners in Seattle used to threaten to stop running with me if I didn't stop rescuing worms after a rainstorm.

I was a vegetarian for twenty years. So how, and why, did I stop?

It's not everyone who hears their doctor begging them to eat meat. In this day of cholesterol-fearing frenzy, that's a rare enough thing in itself. But my blood iron levels were "lower than a cancer patient's". My thyroid had gone haywire and my health was in the toilet. You'd think it would be an easy decision, given all of that. Yet leaving vegetarianism behind is anything but simple.

To stop being a vegetarian is very straightforward: all you have to do is start eating meat again. But vegetarianism is as much a part of your soul as it is of your body. It's as much religion as it is nutrition. It's been several years now since I made the difficult decision to reclaim my health and to start eating animals after 20+ years of vegetarianism, but it's something I find that I rarely talk about. In some sense, when you're part of the vegetarian and vegan culture, you're made to feel like you've personally failed some great moral test if you can't make it work for your body. You just haven't tried hard enough. Perhaps you need to eat more raw foods, or juice more, or eat more tofu for protein, take more B12 and supplements. As I struggled with my health, I tried and I tried and I tried, so many different things. And I got sicker and sicker and sicker.

I could not complete my first Ironman because I was so anemic my doctor was considering a blood transfusion. So years later when I decided to try again to become an Ironman for real, I knew what I needed to do. I just didn't know how I could bring myself to do it.

The answer for me, at first, was all-natural humanely raised lunch meat. Thinly sliced stuff that tastes bland, doesn't bleed, doesn't have to be cut or prepared, and looks nothing like an animal. This worked fine at first. I could start healing my body without really facing what I was doing, what I was eating. Very slowly over time, I started branching out: a pound of hamburger, some pre-roasted chicken from the supermarket. And then eventually, a steak on the barbeque.

That was it then, at that point I had to face up to it for real: I was eating an animal. Don't call it pork, Robin. Call it what it is: a pig. It's not beef, it's a cow. Let's really look at what we're doing here. My mind was drawn back to a trip that hubby and I took to Africa to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. We spent over a week on a camping safari afterwards, one morning watching hyenas stalking the wildebeest at the watering hole, another day spotting a battle between vultures and wild dogs for the remains of a lion-shredded zebra. This is real life. This is what happens every day. Death happens in order for life to happen. That got me thinking about my previous pristine diet: what had died in order that my "textured vegetable protein" shaped like a hot dog arrived on my plate? Insects, mice, voles, or other creatures that once called those mono-crop soybean fields their homes?

There is no living without death, and therefore there is no eating without death. That truth is a big one. It took me a long time to look it in the eye, and to make my peace with it. I saw that I had never truly been a vegetarian and most especially not a vegan. Even as I saved a spider from my home, I ran over another one when I backed my car out of the driveway. Even as I avoided eating the cow, I ate a mouse's home burrow in my soyburger.

Reading Lierre Keith's book The Vegetarian Myth was like looking in a mirror. Like hearing a beautiful sermon that explained everything. Like being delivered from a heavy mental weight that I didn't know I was still carrying. Like getting a big hug from someone who understands exactly what you've gone through. I could finally stop beating myself for "failing" at vegetarianism, and start celebrating the newer, stronger, healthier body that I now had.


I no longer had a cupboard full of supplements that I had to make sure I took. I no longer had to take so many iron pills every day that my stomach burned and hurt. My thyroid was irreparably damaged (I personally believe it was because of all the soy I ate, soy being a known thyroid and endocrine disruptor) but I would just have to make the best of that. My constant sugar cravings and subsequent battles with candida and yeast infections were gone. I got up in the morning with energy, and could complete even the longest hardest workout without breaking down. My restless leg syndrome and pica were disappearing (both are tied to severe anemia) and my insomnia was on its way out, for good.

Continuing my journey from vegetarian to omnivore, to locavore, to Paleo locavore, I have felt my health, mental health, and energy increase exponentially. It seems funny to me, but I probably eat more vegetables on a paleo diet than I did as a vegetarian (especially in my fat-phobic, Snackwell-munching days). For sure I eat far less sugar. Somewhat counter-intuitively, my cholesterol is down from 220 as a vegetarian to 175 as an omnivore. Probably a side effect of the decreased sugar consumption. Also interestingly, my weight has stayed exactly the same - from vegetarian to vegan to pescavore to omnivore to paleo. From low fat to high fat from high carb to low carb, my scale doesn't budge an inch. But then again, I feel like I'm at a healthy weight, so it doesn't really need to. I just think that's interesting given the hype that the proponents of each diet dish out.

I also eat more locally, and more sustainably, contrary to what most vegetarians believe. My meat, eggs, milk, and vegetables all come from the valley that I live in. Only my luxury items like bananas and coconuts are shipped in from far away. I'd hate to give them up, but I don't depend on them to thrive.

So the other night on the Discovery channel when I saw that beautiful elk heave its last dying breaths while the modern-day caveman hunters who had slain it with an atlatl gathered around for an emotional and teary moment to thank it for giving up its life for them, I was not repulsed. I did not have to avert my eyes, my heart was not sad. There is no living without death, it's something I can fully face now. And therefore I myself can fully live.

Countdown to Ironman, Week 38: Rest and Regroup

There are millions of people who struggle to motivate themselves to get off the couch and go out to exercise.

Then there are triathletes.

We have the opposite problem: getting ourselves to stop. This week hit me from both sides:

On the one hand we had some of the last of the warm weather: gorgeous 85 degree days, but with rain coming in the forecast. Who would not want to get out and ride or run as many miles as possible knowing that the drizzly grey days will soon be here?

On the other hand, I had done a triathlon two weeks ago, and the 24-mile trail run two weeks before that. As soon as I got home from those events, I dove back into karate with a vengeance, training myself into some serious muscle soreness. I was fatigued, not sleeping, clearly needing to back off and catch up. I needed to rest, not ride.

Since I'm not quite as stupid as I was a couple of decades ago, when I would often manage to over-train myself out of any kind of decent race day performance, this week I managed to placate my sun-loving self with a trip to the outdoor pool for some last sun-soaked relaxing yards, and I did go out on the bike, though not for as long as I would've liked. Throw a nice trail run into the mix in a sunny forest that still smelled of rain-soaked fir needles, and I made a good week of it.

I can feel that I'm anxious to get on with it, to get started on the Ironman preparation. But I also need to let myself relax a bit and continue to heal up. My arm got sore this week from the contact in karate and I have to be careful not to push it too hard there or in the pool. The off-season might only be a few weeks long this year before I dive back in, but I need to take it nonetheless.

It's too bad I couldn't just hand all this motivation to someone out there on a couch who really needs it right now, and swap it for the ability to just sit still for awhile, something I find darned hard to do. But I can hear the rain starting to patter down on the trees outside, and that might just make it easier.

All Intervals and No Play Make Jack A Dull Athlete

The Game Was On. It was serious. The "older folks" (those of us above the ripe old age of twenty) were pitted against the youngsters. It was war. Well, it was Ninja Stars, a variety of dodgeball played by flinging square karate "focus pads" at each other. No way were we going to let those whippersnappers beat us. Of course, it helps that several of the dads in class have deadly aim and speed throwing those pads. Me, I'm pretty worthless at throwing, but I managed to stay in the game by dodging well. I'm sure none of us thought about the fact that we were working on agility, speed, dexterity, or stamina, we were just playing.

Playing is something we do a lot of as kids, and often forget to do as adults. True play brings a component of joy to our workouts that can be missed if we're just counting the miles or tracking the splits and heartrate data. One thing I really value about our karate classes is that we do take time to play, laugh, have fun, as well as to get serious, punch, kick, and spar. I also like to include other forms of play in my life, everything from innertubing with the kids to early morning pick-up Volleyball games at the club. Most of these could be considered a workout, but somehow they never feel that way to me.

Our game of Ninja Stars was a great reminder to include more play in my workouts, especially as we head toward winter. If you have a group of people, you can include some fun, even in traditional workouts like running. Last year's muddy buddy run was a great example of how to shake things up. Everything's more fun when you do it in the mud. Even if you're like me and typically work out solo, it can be worth it to enlist some friends and go have a game of whatever. I guarantee you'll get a great workout, but you won't even think about it.

Why Hubby Should Not Send Me To Buy Chicken Food

I should never be allowed to go into a Farm and Garden store. Or a pet store. Or the local animal shelter. Or anyplace with small cute mammals. Because I Am A Sucker. With a capital S. And it's worse when my daughter is along because she's basically a mini-me.

And so it was that today we went to get chicken food, and came home with a bunny. Because with 16 animals here at Casa del Crazies, we needed one more. In my defense, let me just say that this is the sweetest, absolutely cutest bunny on the planet. Absolutely.

Bored In the Pool? Try These Workouts

I have to admit it: I'm allergic to being bored in the pool. Every summer after coming in from fabulous months of swimming in blue lakes under an open sky, I look at that 25 yard length of enclosed water and shudder. So I have to get really creative with my fall swim workouts so that I don't go absolutely bat-shit crazy in my first month or two swimming indoors.

Here's a couple of my recent Masters Workouts to get you back into the swing of indoor swimming. Both of these will kick your butt if you do them right (go HARD when it says Hard, go DISTANCE PACE instead of Easy when it says Distance Pace):

WORKOUT #1:

WARMUP:
300 Swim
100 Kick Fly, 100 Pull
100 Kick Back, 100 Pull
100 Kick Breaststroke, 100 Pull
100 Kick Flutter, 100 Pull

MAIN SET:

4 x 225 @ 3:30:      Odds: Straight @ Distance Pace
                               Evens: Break at 150 for 10 seconds, go hard on the final 75

6 x 125 @ 2:00       Odds: Straight @ Distance Pace
                                Evens: Break at 75 for 10 seconds, go hard on final 50

8 x 75 @ 1:15         Odds: Straight @ Distance Pace
                                Evens: Break at 50 for 5 seconds, go hard on final 25

200 Pull
100 EZ

TOTAL: 4150 Yards


WORKOUT #2:

WARMUP:
300 Swim
300 Drill/Swim/Kick by 25s
200 Pull
200 Drill/Swim/Kick by 25s

MAIN SET:

3 x ( 4 x 100:  
        #1:  25 Fast/75 Distance Pace (DP) rest :30
        #2:  50 Fast/50 DP r. :30
        #3: 75 Fast/ 25 DP r. :30
        #4: 100 Fast, r. :60
      )

3 x ( 3 x 100:
        #1: 25 Fly, 50 Free, 25 Back r. :30
        #2: 25 Back, 50 Free, 25 Breast r. :30
        #3: 25 Breast, 50 Free, 25 Fly, r. :60
       )

3 x ( 2 x 100:
       #1: 25 Kick Hard, 50 Distance Pace, 25 Kick hard on back, r. :30
       #2: Build 0by 25s to ALL OUT r. :60
      )

3 x 100: #1 SLOW, #2: MEDIUM, #3: FAST  @ 2:00

200 EZ

4200 Yards

Countdown to Ironman, Weeks 39 & 40: Why Race?

Why Race? Why not just go and run or bike or swim and not bother going to these events called races?

I asked myself that a lot this year, especially since, unlike most summers, I was not racing. My family would probably sigh a big sigh of relief if I didn't spend the time and the money to race. And very few people really understand it. I mean sheesh Robin, you've done triathlons for 25 years now, do you really have to go and do these races? What are you out to prove?

Why Race?

To me, every race is an opportunity to discover, to see the world a little more clearly, to exist in that space where everything becomes very very simple. Life is complicated. Every day involves a thousand decisions and distractions. Even on a run or a bike ride, my mind may be reeling through my To Do lists, or thinking through some problem. Racing cuts away everything that is not essential to the task at hand. Speed, time, breathing, cadence, hydration, this is all that's left. Like Occam and his razor, entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem, nothing unnecessary need be added.


Why Race?

To learn new things about the world, about myself, about the human body. What did I learn in Lake Tahoe last week? That doing a race in water that clear is an amazing experience, that hills that would've once defeated me mentally on the bike now seem like a strength to me, that altitude has more effects on race performance than I understood. I now know, for instance (sadly only in hindsight as I've done some research this week) that if you're going to race at altitude, you should either show and up race within 24 hours of arriving, or after a week or more. The worst time to race is around 48 hours, which is exactly what I chose to do. Twenty-five years of triathlons, and I'm still learning all the time.

Why Race Ironman?

Now that I'm less than forty weeks away, this is the question that I'm continually asking myself. Only in my brain it's usually phrased more like "So tell me why the hell you're doing this AGAIN?" And the answer is that it will take me to places that I wouldn't visit otherwise. Of course it will take me to Coeur D'Alene and some of the lovely scenery around there that will be new to me. But I could drive there and see that. Instead, it will take me to places inside myself that most of us never go. We don't usually have to dig down for that last tiny reserve of strength and willpower until we have to. But that's precisely where an Ironman will take you. Yes, there's something magical about the distance. The half doesn't take me halfway to that place, but the full distance will almost always drag you through that wringer and back out again. Even when you think you don't ever want to feel that way again, it turns out somehow that you do. And that's why I race.

Iron Girl Lake Tahoe Race Report

The Short Version: 

Beautiful race, amazing location, great organization, with the fun all-women vibe. Had a bit slower day than I'd hoped due to lack of oxygen, this anemic flatlander really suffered at 6225 feet above sea level. Still, I had the fastest swim of all the triathletes (even while gasping like a fish out of water), and finished 4/63 AG and 30/494 overall (with most of those placing high being from Reno/Tahoe area.) Learned some valuable lessons I want to take forward to Ironman Coeur d'Alene (more on that later).

The Long Version: 

The day dawned dark and early, as race days tend to do. Usually with me thinking "Why am I doing this to myself?" I am not a morning person. I have to take a shower just to get my eyelids to open. I ate my Paleo pre-race breakfast of coconut-banana custard which I'd made up and brought ahead of time and drank my traditional Yerba Mate. Yes, I'm that crunchy.

Walking down to the race start, I was amazed at how many people there were on the streets at 5:00 am. Not people in athletic gear either. Mostly people in slightly-to-very mussed up fancy clothes, wobbling on high heels or leaning on friends or dates, sometimes looking like they were about to puke into the bushes. I guess that's what being in a casino town adds to the early morning hours. Glad I don't drink much, or gamble. All of a sudden, going to a triathlon start seems downright reasonable in comparison.

At the Iron Girl transition area, I got to meet up with Laura again, and her excitement was contagious, it was fun to feel the energy of all the women, so many of them first-timers. I was also very glad to have brought my Oregon duck striped hat and gloves because it was colddddd outside! The transition area was filling up and so we set to getting our gear ready. I thought some of you might be interested in how I typically lay out my transition area, so here's a photo. There's the lucky polka-dotted towel, the Pointy Helmet of Speed, shoes with socks pre-rolled, and my race belt and hat.

I was sure glad I decided to wear my wetsuit, especially since we had to vacate the transition area over 30 minutes before our wave start. The neoprene at least kept us warm as we walked down to the beach. I found Laura again and was very glad for the company, it's much more fun than going to a race all by your lonesome.

So, on to the race:

SWIM: 400 m:  6:35   Wow, have never done a triathlon in a lake this clear. So cool! It was also a running beach start which was great practice for IM CdA, and a little intimidating. I was in the 2nd wave, and I could clearly see the swimmers from the wave ahead of me as I approached them in the water. I mean like see them as if they were floating in the air! It was like some swimming video game where the swimmers would appear in front of me and I'd have to decide to go left or right. As I came out of the water I was well ahead of everyone in my wave, but didn't learn later that I had the fastest swim split of the race. 6:35 seems pretty slow for me for a wetsuit swim, so I'm guessing the course was marked a little long.

T1: 5:54  This is a LONG transition, about a 500m run up to the transition area. The beach sand is very coarse and darn near impossible to get off your feet. I wasted way too much time trying to get the sand off with a washcloth at the "shoe transition" area near the beach. That was dumb. Shoulda run barefoot (after all, I'm used to that!) or just run with the sand in my shoes. Seeing as how I missed both 2nd and 3rd places in my age division by 30 seconds or less, this was probably my biggest mistake of the day. Other than that, I executed a good transition once I got to the main area. I did notice (foreshadowing here) that I could barely catch my breath when I was running from the beach to T1.

BIKE: 24k : 46:09 Lots of rollers on the bike course, I just tried to keep in a groove. The biggest worry for me is that I haven't been doing any climbing out of the saddle due to my injured arm, and I was hoping none of the hills would be steep enough to need that. Luckily, there was only one spot I needed to stand up and then only for a few seconds. Most of the hills were spinnable. Still, I can see how a race course of steady big rollers can be taxing! While I didn't notice the altitude on the bike as much as on the run later, I did note that my average speed was not what I'd hoped. Not sure how much was due to the thinner air, how much to my lack of hill training and how much to my lessened bike volume this summer.  Overall though, the bike course was so pretty I just tried to enjoy the heck out of it! I loved how they blocked off the center lanes for the course, no need to worry about traffic. Also the pavement was beautifully smooth, which makes for a nice biking experience.

T2: 1:30: Not a bad T2 time given that the area was pretty spread out.

RUN: 5k: 29:25: Here's where I really noticed the altitude. I just couldn't speed my legs up on the run, not because my legs were tired. My legs felt fine. It's just that every time I tried to make them go faster I started sucking wind like nobody's business. This is when it hit me that the altitude was really going to become a problem. I was 2nd in my AG going into the run with a pretty comfortable margin on the other runners, but I just couldn't keep up any pace at all. Sadly, I was passed by #2 and #3 in my age group just before the finisher's chute (they beat me by 30 and 13 seconds). You'd think I could just speed up and take them down, but it was simply impossible. As I tried, I started gasping and I started getting tunnel vision. Not. Enough. Oxygen. Wow!

Attending the awards after the race, it was clear that most of the AG and Overall winners were from Tahoe, Reno, Carson City, etc. I was definitely not prepared for how much the altitude would effect me. After all, I just ran a 24 mile trail run at nearly the same elevation. However, and this is a big however, that was at a much more aerobic effort. I could stay aerobic no problem, but every time I tried to push up near my VO2Max, I just pooped out.

Still, I had a great time and a reasonably strong finish in what is unbelievably my first (and only) triathlon of the season! I learned a lot that I can apply to IMCdA (like get to the race site early enough to acclimate to the elevation, and work on getting some more red blood cells, practice biking on big rollers and learn how to deal with them mentally so they don't get me down). So I'm really glad I came and had this terrific experience.

Sarah from Iron Girl was great, it was nice to meet her, and really wonderful to meet up with Laura and see her do such an awesome job in this race. I missed her at the finish line because she told me she'd be happy to go under 2:00, and instead she came in at 1:47, kickin' some booty! I am hoping she will write up her race experience to share here.

Iron Girl Lake Tahoe, Pre-Race Decisions

On Saturday, after Friday's unexpected turn of events at the Reno Air Races, hubby decided to head up to Lake Tahoe with our daughter Asa and I. It was really good for him to be able to get away from Reno, from the televisions constantly showing the Youtube videos of the crash, and the fact that the NTSB crash investigators were staying in our hotel. Tahoe is such a lovely place, and we got a beautiful hotel room to stay in (a lucky last-minute find for me) at the Mariott Lodge at the base of the Heavenly gondola. As you can see, Asa was jumping for joy at the idea of a weekend at the lake (yes, the girl loves water as much as her mama!)

After getting registered and checking my bike into transition on Saturday, I listened to the course talk, a wise decision since this course is a bit unusual. For one thing, you can't even see the lake from the transition area, it's quite a ways down the road and around a couple of corners. So they have a special "shoe transition" so you don't have to make the whole run barefoot. I got to meet up with Laura, the winner of our Irongirl race entry giveaway here on the Ironmom Blog, and her husband. This was a real treat since Laura is about the nicest athlete you could hope to meet. It was great fun to have someone to share the experience with, especially coming from so far out of town. Not only was she awesome and fun, but check out her pro-quality transition area: neat, and well-organized with just the right amount of gear. Very impressive!

After saying goodbye to Laura and promising to meet up in transition the next morning, I headed down to the lake with my family. The main decisions I needed to make were:

1. Wetsuit or not? It was only going to be a 400 meter swim so a wetsuit would give me a negligible speed advantage. The water temperature was given at 67 degrees, very doable without a wetsuit. However, the air temperature on race morning was predicted to be in the high 30's, which meant that coming out of the water chilled might be a bad idea. Then there was the problem of the 1/3 mile run to T1, which could be awkward in a tight wetsuit.

2. Shoes or not? Should I stage some shoes at the lakeside to wear to the transition area - how bad did the pavement look for running in bare feet?

3. Wear my regular bike helmet or the Pointy Helmet of Speed (which I have previously referred to as the Helmet of Ultimate Dorkitude)? In a race that's mostly tailored for first-timers, I hate to wear that silly helmet, I think it looks kinda presumptuous. However, in very cold air, it has the added advantage of covering my ears and keeping them from getting chilled and ear-achey, something that they're prone to.

I decided to swim the course and make a call based on that. Getting in, the water felt decidedly chilly but not unreasonable. The lake was choppy with the afternoon wind, but beautifully clear. I swam the course with no trouble. However, when I got out, even with the afternoon sunshine streaming down, I quickly became very chilled. It took over an hour to warm back up. That did it, my decision was to wear a wetsuit.

On the shoe front, I decided that the road looked too rough to run in bare feet and decided to stage some shoes, along with a small towel to knock some of the very coarse sand off.

And yes, I went with the Pointy Helmet of Speed. When I got out of the lake, just the afternoon breeze was giving me an ear-ache after that cold water. I figured I would look ridiculous, but I'd be happy if my inner ears did not feel like someone was stabbing them with ice picks.

Tomorrow I'll post my race report and let you know how those decisions worked out on race day!

Prayers Needed, Reno Air Races Crash

On my way to the Iron Girl Lake Tahoe triathlon this weekend, the plan was to stop in here at Reno and meet up with hubby who is down here for the Reno Air Races. He works in the aviation field and was at the races with many colleagues. He called me while I was still driving, very shaken up. An airplane in the Unlimited Class (the very very fast, 450+ mph planes) had some sort of mechanical failure, pulled up, wobbled in the air and came straight down into the crowds, about 100 feet away from my hubby. This photo is one I took last year when we were both at the races. You can see how fast and how low these planes are flying, it is truly incredible.

So for those of you who knew I was going to be there, I wasn't, and I'm fine. I'm so very grateful that my hubby is fine too, although I know that "fine" isn't really the word for it. When you see something like that, it sticks into your heart and your mind. The families and the children that were there need all of our good thoughts and prayers as they come to terms with injuries, loss, and trauma.

Another reminder that life is short and what we do today is what matters. Hug your spouse and children a little closer.

My heart goes out to the pilot of the Galloping Ghost, his family and his friends. This is the poem that is most often recited at the funeral of a pilot. May it wing his way speedily heavenwards.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Dim The Lights, Put On Some Music, I'm Massaging My...... Kale???

Obviously, I live under a rock.Unbeknownst to me, all of my friends are massaging kale and I simply had No. Idea. None. How could this trend pass me by? Maybe it's because I don't shop at Whole Foods, where there is apparently a wonderful massaged kale salad in the salad bar. Alas, my little organicky local market is not nearly that trendy.

Since I am so behind the times, I had to jump right in and make a massaged kale salad as soon as I heard about it today. All it takes is some kale, easy enough to find in Northwest gardens this time of year. Normally, I would be growing simply enormous chard and kale in my garden right now, but my garden has been bulldozed for this summer's landscaping project, so I had to go and buy some at the store.

I plunged my hands right in, adding some salt, some lime, and some avocado to the mix, it was a very sensory experience to be sure. Kind of like using Play-Doh and finger paints in kindergarten all over again. When the massaging was done, the kale was tender and yummy, and all I needed to do was figure out what to add to it. In today's case, I threw in some minced garlic, a teaspoon of stone ground mustard, a teaspoon of maple syrup, and some balsamic vinegar. Then topped it with slivered almonds and dried cranberries. I can see that there could be many variations on the kale massaging theme though, and I can't wait to try more of them out!

Getting Excited For Iron Girl

It sounds very strange to say, but the Iron Girl Lake Tahoe sprint triathlon this weekend will be my first race of the season. Actually, the first triathlon I've done in a whole year! The last time I went an entire summer without doing a triathlon, it was because I was massively pregnant, so this has been a very different summer for me. Not without its adventures for sure!

So, although September typically has me doing a half-Iron, I am very excited to be heading south to do this sprint tri in such a beautiful location instead. I've done most of my biking on my trainer since breaking my arm, but it looks like the course isn't too hilly so that's a bonus. My legs are feeling a little fatigued still from the marathon last week, and strangely my calves were very tight during karate last night so I had to really back off of what I was doing. That's all I need is a big old knot in my calf!

Tomorrow is packing day, and so I'll be pulling out all of my gear, and checking it carefully, using my handy-dandy triathlon packing checklist. Then Friday morning it's road trip time as we head down to Reno, and then onwards to Tahoe on Saturday. I haven't been there since hubby and I took a romantic snowboarding excursion there in our first few months together (almost two decades ago) so I'm very excited to see it again. Sunday's weather looks beautiful, with a predicted high of 76, and a chilly 41 degree low that will leave the morning feeling brisk.

More than anything, I'm looking forward to racing someplace totally new and different, and enjoying the spectacular views that this course is sure to bring.

Since I always try my best to do a time estimate before a race, here's my best guess for how it will go. This time it's a little more up in the air than usual, since my bike is basically an unknown, I haven't done any speed work in running, and the first transition is a 1/3 mile in which you can optionally put on shoes (still not sure what I'm going to do about that). Also not sure yet whether I will wear a wetsuit or not and whether I will don the Pointy Helmet of Speed or just my usual red lid. So many unknowns!

Swim: 400m: 6:20  if I don't wear a wetsuit, sub-6:00 if I do
T1: 6:00
Bike: 24k (approx. 15 miles): 45 minutes
T2: 1:30
Run: 27:30

Total: 1:26:30

Let's see how good my estimating skills are on this one!

Countdown to Ironman, Week 41: Gearing Up For Rainy Rides

I think I might've doomed myself with that last post about Autumn because now it's drizzling outside my window. Wait, I still have 8 more days of summer left!

But that's got me thinking about what I'm going to need to do this winter: ride in the rain. My bike base is substantially lower than its been in previous years due to this summer's broken arm, and there's only two ways to get it back to where it should be:

Ride on the trainer or

Ride in the rain.

Frankly, I'm not sure which is worse but I'm sure I'll have plenty of both in the coming months. So it's time to start gearing up for outdoor riding, making sure I can stay warm and relatively dry while I pile on those miles.

Luckily, I've spent the last couple of years trying to ditch my rain-weenie biking reputation and have actually acquired some neoprene booties, thermal tights, and a rain jacket and vest, so I should be set. Also fortunately, I swam with the Masters this morning, so I don't have to go out in the rain just yet. I can sit here with my steaming mug of tea, staring out the window and making plans.

Seasons Turning: Coming Into Parenthood's Autumn

Fall came today. Yesterday it was summer, hot as Hades, the air conditioning on for the first time this year. In the evening it started to cool down, and I grabbed my bike and headed out my favorite back country road. Swirls of wind sent the first crispy golden leaves dancing ahead of me. The calendar says nine more days of summer, but the seasons say otherwise: autumn comes earlier in the Northwest forests. The days will still be hot now, but the nights will chill and I shook out my down comforter and changed the duvet cover.

Although we homeschool, it seems our lives are inevitably tied to the school calendar. So as September rolls on like a steam train, I headed to Portland with the FTC robotics team I coach for the season kickoff on Saturday. This year my team of boys all tower over me. At fourteen to seventeen years old, they are near-men and their voices boom with new depth as they chatter about coding and servos and the inevitable video games. They make decisions with maturity, stay doggedly on task, and it seems that my years of "herding cats" as I've called my role as a coach is coming to an end.

Sunday brought the first of the year's ten thousand dance performances for my daughter. Her dance and theatre company had an open house, so she performed with the dance team, and reprised a song from her role as "Annie" in the musical. Whereas in years past, I was needed backstage for hair, makeup, and costume changes, now I can sit in the audience and chat with the other parents. Clearly, I am becoming superfluous, like a leaf cast off from a tree to drift slowly down to earth.

Yet as the earth has its magnetic poles that it must orbit around, I sense that my kids still need me at their center, still need a direction for their compass arrows to point. Even as they reach out in all directions, I am still there at the core. This year will be very different from the last time I trained for the Ironman. They were seven and ten then, now they'll be almost thirteen and sixteen when I do the race. I won't have to scramble to fit my workouts in around my husband's schedule or when I can find a babysitter. But I have to be careful to guard my time with them and make sure that I don't take my fleeting hours with them for granted. Like summer's last rays outside my window, their time with me is drawing to a close and I want to hold it close and make it last.

Countdown to Ironman, Week 42: The Emotional Rollercoaster

If it was easy, they wouldn't call it the Ironman, right? Every Ironman journey is fraught with doubts and excitement, emotional highs and lows. I have to admit that in the last six miles of my trail marathon, it was the doubts that were winning out. My thoughts went something like "If I'm bonking and choking in the middle of this little run, how am I going to handle doing this AFTER biking and swimming all that ways?

Of course, the answer is equally simple: I'm going to train more. Comparing a performance when I've only been training 20 miles a week of running and very little biking is not the same as what I'm capable of when I'm training twice that or more. It's easy to forget that if we build up gradually, our bodies are capable of ever-increasing feats of endurance. When I started training for my first Ironman after having kids, I could hardly run a mile. The fact that I just ran twenty-four of them on a hot, rocky, high-altitude, hilly trail should be comforting me, not demoralizing me!

So here I am, forty-two weeks away from Ironman Coeur d'Alene (well, 41.3 if you're being picky) and I'm officially going to tell myself that I can do this. Of course, this will only be the first of many times that I'll need to do this. After all, if it was going to be easy, they wouldn't call it the Ironman.

Incredible Post-Marathon Recovery

I can still recall the last time I ran a marathon what my legs felt like the next day. Going down stairs was an agony, I wished for handrails on any chair I had to sit down in. I moved like a geriatric, shuffling around (isn't it called the "post-marathon shuffle?"), and the idea of moving fast, squatting, or jumping would be enough to make me cringe. Talking with other endurance athlete friends, it seems like this is the norm.


This time is different. I hate to keep beating the Paleo drum, but I've been doing endurance sports for over 25 years and my body has never recovered better than during this year of Paleo eating. Let's just say I felt so good the day after my trail marathon that I literally was jumping for joy, and I had to make a little video to share it with you:

The Amazing Waldo Lake Solo Trail Marathon

A solo run through the wilderness. No cheering crowds, no aid stations, no banners, medals, t-shirts, no finish line other than the one in my head. A challenge I set for myself and accomplished solely because I wanted to. I've been looking forward to this all year.

I have wanted to run around Waldo Lake for a long time, but it's a daunting task. The trail ranges in elevation from about 5,500 - 6,000 feet, is almost never flat, and once you leave the campground you are on your own. In the middle of the Willamette National forest, adjoining the 36,000 acre Waldo Lake Wilderness, with one access road coming in, it is a remote and lovely place, one of the most utterly quiet places I've ever had the privilege to visit. The lake itself is one of the clearest in the world, with visibility at over 100 feet. From any angle above the lake, you can look down into its beautiful depths to see the rocks on the bottom.

Lucky for me, my hubby is an avid mountain biker and agreed to be my marathon support team and accompany me on this journey. He packed 110 oz. of water in his hydration pack, and enough Honey Stingers and Lara Bars to keep me in glycogen supply for the five hours we estimated we'd be out there (including stops to take photos, of course!) My brother-in-law Nick decided to come along for the adventure as well, and so on Sunday morning we set out from the North Waldo campground to circumnavigate the lake in a counter-clockwise direction.

Let's just say I learned a lot on this run. There were many lessons it taught me, about trail running long distances, about planning, about elevation, hydration, and how hard I could push myself without any kind of event to provide moral support. Leading up to the day's attempt, my longest training run this year was about 10.5 miles (partially due to breaking my arm in June, which curtailed my running for the early months of the summer). This trail was slightly over 22, though I would run 24 or so by the time the day was done.

Firstly, although we meant to leave by 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning, that just didn't happen. We had been camping for days, and between getting up and cooking breakfast for the kids, making sure they had everything they needed for the day's activities, it was 10:00 by the time I left the campground. It was still cool enough in the shade to wear my long-sleeved shirt starting out, but I knew it would be getting hotter by the minute as the sun cleared the trees. I decided to wear my Vibram FiveFingers shoes, even though I've never run more than 10 or 11 miles in them. Why? Because the trail is largely fine dirt and forest duff, because I can no longer stand to wear regular running shoes, because I thought they'd help with agility on a trail known for roots and rocks. I also wore some new pink compression socks, just to keep the old leg muscles together for longer. So here I am looking like a total dork, getting ready to set out.

Let's say this right off the bat: this trail is never flat. I actually did it in the opposite direction from this elevation profile above, which seems like a pretty stupid decision when you look at the fact that all those hills on the left side of the profile came at the END of the run instead of at the beginning when I felt a little fresher. However, I knew I'd be running through the Taylor Burn, a vast area of starkly beautiful charred trees, and doing that in the morning when it was cooler sounded better than finishing up in the hot afternoon sun with no shade.

So off I set, heading into the burn almost immediately from the North Waldo campground. The guys set off on their mountain bikes only 10 minutes behind me, but as I was running and didn't see them and didn't see them, I started doing the math in my head. If I was running at my usual trail speed of 5 - 6 miles per hour, and they were biking along this rocky rutted trail probably only making 7 or 8 miles per hour, it was going to take a long time for them to catch me! Maybe it wasn't such a good idea not to have my own water and food along. My watch had died during a lake swim the day before (curse you Ironman watches and your supposed "water resistance"), and so I only had my best guestimate to go on, but after about 30 or 40 minutes, I just ran down to the shore and drank the clear lake water. Giardia be damned, at least I wasn't thirsty anymore.

Finally I entered the shady forest and a lovely singletrack trail winding along the lakeshore. The guys caught up to me and I grabbed a bottle of Hammer Perpetuem off the bike and slugged some down. For the next couple of miles they hopscotched me along the trail until we ended up at this fabulous overlook and stopped to ask another mountain biker to take a photo. I'd allowed myself to get a little behind the hydration curve and was feeling parched so I glugged down some more fluid. But from there on out, I figured I'd never be far from my support crew and my water and food, so I wasn't worried.

Off we went again, this time through more densely forested areas with bridges over dry seasonal streams. The trail wound toward and away from the lake, providing lovely views from time to time and at other times the solitude of the trees. After awhile, I noticed that I could no longer hear my mountain biking escort behind me. No worries though, I figured they'd catch up sooner or later. The trail began to climb, turning south and away from the lakeshore views. Although I wasn't really keeping track of time, it occurred to me that it had been quite a long time since I'd seen Wayne and Nick, and I was getting quite thirsty by now.

I stopped, listened. Nothing but the silence of the forest. I pulled out my whistle and blew. No answering tweet from my guys. Then I noticed how far from the lake I was. Maybe I'd somehow made a mistake and took a side trail, one that climbed up and away from the lake? There were several, but all were well signed. I stopped again. What if I was heading away from the lake and the guys were still going along the lakeshore? I wasn't even halfway around and although I knew I could always get back to the lake for hydration, it would be a very long slog without some nutrition. I turned around and reluctantly started running back the way I'd come. Back downhill.

About a mile or so later, I finally ran into them. Turns out that I was on the right trail after all, but Wayne had a flat tire just shortly after I'd left them so they were a long ways back. No worries, I again took the opportunity to try to catch up my hydration and headed back up the hill (ugh!) again. But mountain bike support was not destined to work out all that well for this trail. Although we stayed closer through the rest of the run, we were again separated by Nick's brake failing, and then his derailleur, leaving him as a single speed bike with only one brake.

This is about where the bigger hills took hold, with bigger rocks to boot. Some of them were gnarly enough that I had to walk the downhills as well as the uphills just in order to not trip and kill myself. But these were interspersed with lovely green meadows and water-lily filled ponds that thankfully didn't yield up the bloodthirsty hordes of mosquitoes that sometimes plague this place. I felt really strong and although I was now past my longest training run, the legs felt fresh and I was really enjoying the beauty of the place and the peace of running by myself.

Somewhere around 18 miles, that dreaded Wall came to meet me though. I knew he might be out there somewhere. Beauty and trees and peacefulness are all fine and dandy, but this is still a long ways to run. I think if I'd stayed on top of the nutrition and hydration from the get-go, I might've missed the Wall altogether, but alas that was not the case. I got hot. I got thirsty. I tried to put more fluid and calories down but by now my stomach was feeling a bit rebellious. The altitude I'm sure added to the toll.

The last six miles were definitely challenging. The trail crosses the road and stays away from the lake, it's full of PUDs (Pointless Ups and Downs) that seem tailor-made to demoralize a poor trail runner. Luckily my hubby raced ahead to refill his Camelbak with water, and my brother-in-law stayed with me and kept up my spirits. We talked about that place I call The Dark Night of the Soul that reaches out for you in long distance events, and he reminded me of how we can overcome our body's obstacles with the power of our mind. By the time Wayne got back with the water, I could hear children's voices from the campground and knew I would make it.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience, something that I've really looked forward to accomplishing and was so thrilled to get the opportunity to do. I'm grateful for my support crew, without whom I would've had to carry all my own gear. Being able to run unencumbered was such a freeing thing, and it was great to share the experience with them. I learned (or re-learned) those valuable lessons about not getting behind in my hydration and nutrition, something I really really need to keep in mind for the Ironman. Drink and eat early and often! As always, I find myself so appreciative of all that my body can do. I ask it and I ask it, and still it keeps giving me these amazing experiences. More than anything, I'm so happy to live in this beautiful place on earth. Literally 80 miles from my front door I can run through the wilderness, through silent forests and along majestic lake shores. What a lucky lady I am!

Athlete Profile: John Smallwood, Trans-America Cyclist

We met in the strangest and most serendipitous way. Although we had never set eyes on each other before, and although he had just biked 70 miles down Oregon's Willamette Valley when he called me from his cell phone, John Smallwood was in reality standing just 50 feet away from me. It was a surreal moment. The traveling cyclist was going to be our houseguest, via an organization called Warmshowers.org, which pairs cyclists with host families. Typically a cyclist calls me when they get into town and I give them directions to our house. This time, I was near downtown, about to pick my son up from Spanish class when John called. I asked him where he was at. "The corner of 6th and High street" he replied in his Australian/British accent.

The funny thing was, I was also at the corner of 6th and High. I looked around.

"Are you wearing a neon green vest?" I asked, pretty sure that the guy with the heavily-laden bike trailer might just be my guest. I waved.

John waved back and I walked over to meet him. Not only did I instantly like him, but as we heaved his 50-pound trailer into the back of my mini-van, my dogs Sophie and Callie, normally quite wary of strangers (especially ones with helmets and neon green vests) took to him immediately as well. Callie climbed right up into his lap as he got in the van, and Sophie set aside her usual period of wary growling and barking to cozy right up to him. This latter I chalk up to the fact that as an Australian Shepherd/Australian Cattle Dog mix, she was very partial to his accent.

Since our city sits right near the beginning (or the end) of the Trans-America Bicycle Trail (established in our bicentennial year of 1976), we get a fair number of folks in the summer who are doing the Cross-America route. They are all interesting, adventurous, and fun people as you might guess. But some of them are just really special and you hate to see them go. John Smallwood was definitely one of those.

As he says on his website, BicycleAcrossAmerica.org, he is "determined to make a difference" by raising money for Maison Chance, an organization that provides housing, health care, educational and vocational training for orphans, street children, disadvantaged and physically handicapped people in Vietnam. And he's doing this by riding across the country, solo. He became involved with Maison Chance while cycling in Vietnam, and I enjoyed hearing his stories about the people he'd bet there whose lives had been greatly changed by this organization. You can read more about the work they do here in his description and there is a link to donate on his main website. You can also send PayPal using their email address, usa@maison-chance.org .

Although our household was deep in its usual craziness (I was juggling kids, dogs, chickens, laundry, and heading out to teach my Karate Conditioning class while John was here), he just rolled with the punches as our guest. The next morning, I took the opportunity to ride out of town with him and see him launched on his continuing journey across the country. You don't know how hard it was to turn back!! Some day, I would love to just keep going, pedaling across this large and beautiful land of ours.

More than anything, John inspired me in so many ways. For one thing, if I had to guess his age, I'd probably put him somewhere around 50. So I was quite surprised when he said 66! If we could all look so fit in our mid-sixties!! That's testimony to a cycling lifestyle for sure. And he said he'd only taken up cycling a few years back, which is pretty amazing really. When you add in his dedication to using his bicycle journey to help others, you can see why I thought you all would like to be as inspired as I was in hearing his story.

There's really no excuse not to get out there and live our lives to the fullest.  As I watched John roll away down the road toward the East Coast, Thoreau's quote came to my mind:

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.


Somewhere out there on the open road, John Smallwood is doing just that.

Swimming Across Crater Lake: The Adventure, The Plan, The Camaraderie

Transcendent. That's the word I'd choose to express my feelings about our Crater Lake swim last weekend. It transcended my expectations in all possible ways. We have been planning this for many many months, training in ever-longer lake swims, making lists of gear and staging, reserving camping spots and buying tickets for the lone boat that travels across the lake to Wizard Island.

For those of you who have never been to Crater Lake: Go. It's one of the wonders of the natural world, and a truly spectacular place. Some of our swimmers and their family members had never been there, so to see their faces when they first caught sight of it was very cool. It is the deepest lake in America at almost 2,000 feet deep, and one of the clearest lakes in the world with visibility well over 100 feet. Our route would take us almost 6.5 miles from Wizard Island (the famous cone-shaped landmark inside the lake) back to the boat dock. A straight shot would've been closer to 5 miles, but we felt it was safer to stay within hailing distance of the shore, just for safety reasons.

There were so many unknowns going into this swim. This year's snowfall had deposited over 600 inches by the end of April, and there was plenty of snow to be seen even in August. That meant the lake temperature might be far below the average for this time of year, which was only in the high 50's to low 60's. Hypothermia was a real possibility, and we agreed that somewhere around 55 degrees was our cutoff point for swimming such a long ways. Weather was another factor, with August you get thunderstorms which can come and go with rapidity. Being stuck in a gigantic bowl of water is not the safest place when lightning strikes, and indeed we were told that the late afternoon storm that deposited some rain on our post-swim barbeque had launched at least seven lightning strikes directly into the lake just an hour or so after we got out. We had swimmers of varying speeds, many of whom had never swam this far before. Myself, I felt like my broken arm in June had left a big question mark over my head. I hadn't been able to swim more than 3 miles in practice before our planned traverse of the caldera. There was also the question of safety: no boat support was allowed, not even an inflatable innertube could be towed along. We had small dry bags that we could swim with, and that was it. They could hold some food, a space blanket, a handwarmer or two, and a two-way radio connecting us to the Rim, but that was it for safety gear. Any emergency we met with, we'd have to handle on our own.

Strangely, while all of our fears about water temperature, weather, ability of swimmers, safety, and gear came to naught, the biggest stumbling block to completing the entire thing was..... boat tickets! We had been told that we could line up to buy tickets only the morning of the trip. Of course, our entire plan hinged on us all getting on the same boat to Wizard Island, and they only run three boats out there per day. Imagine my surprise, when I asked the ticket agent what time we should come to line up for tickets and she said that they'd changed the entire ticket selling system just two days before. Now the tickets were being sold at kiosks up to two days before. They were probably sold out, she informed me. As it turned out, there was only one ticket left. What to do? We brainstormed many possible permutations of our swim, including swimming an out and back, having some of our swimmers start from the island and some from shore (a few had managed to get their hands on advance tickets), and begging the boat captains to commission a separate boat (nixed by the Coast Guard regulations).

Eventually, it came down to the last moment. We snagged the last ticket which brought us up to five. One swimmer bought four tickets on the afternoon boat with the notion of offering to trade morning boat passengers their tickets. That worked for two more. The boat captain himself shifted a couple of staff members to later boats and voila, we were all happy and smiling and headed for the island at 10:00 a.m.

So there we were: the moment had come at last. The water was a brisk 61 near the shore (the captain cautioned us it would be colder out in the middle), and we filled our towable dry bags with snacks, donned our wetsuits, and jumped off the Wizard Island dock for our adventure.

Our plan was to break into three "pods", with color-coordinated caps. We sent the slowest pod off first, the medium pod a little while later, and I brought up the rear with Ethan and Dan, my "white cap" pod-mates. Our first leg took us around the island in about 45 minutes. From there, we sighted on Lao Rock and took off across the deep, and hour-long leg that led us over the bottomless blue, an area where there was 1700 feet of water beneath our wetsuit-clad bodies. The water was so clear, you could look over and see another swimmer like they were moving through glass. It looked as if we were all floating in air, very beautiful and surreal. The light rays converged beneath us in the startling blue water, and at one point we just stopped in the middle all laughing and shouting and just having so much fun. It's like we were all injected with pure joy. We goofed off and took some photos and video there.

After a stop at the rock for some food (no water needed, since we could just drink the lake - now that's purity!), we headed for a deserted beach, another 45 minutes or so away. This was one of the highlights of the journey as we all got out and lounged around on "Aquaduck Beach" (well, as much as one can lounge while wearing a wetsuit, that is!). Such a great company of people to share this journey with!

After that, we did another staggered start with our pods leaving separately toward a point of land, and then our final crossing to the boat dock. All in all, it took us somewhere around 2:40 (for our white pod) and we swam about 6.3 miles, give or take a few yards. We calculated our staggered starts well as each leg of the journey had the white pod gaining on the green and catching up with the yellow so that we all got to each check-in point with a couple minutes of each other. Still, it was amazing how hard it was to see each other across the lake. Since we were down in the caldera, with no noise other than the slap of waves and the breeze, we could sometimes hear our other swimmers but not see them.

All in all, the experience of traversing Crater Lake's caldera was an adventure into the unknown. How many times in your life do you get to embark into the utterly uncertain? Test yourself against nature and your own limitations? Do something where the outcome is not a given? And how many places can you go these days where there are no other humans? Even the summit of Everest has a crowd on any given day in the climbing season. We swam through those pristine waters, we sat on that deserted beach, we looked across the lake and saw nothing but water and sky, heard nothing but wind and waves. Our journey together bonded us as the self-styled "Crater Lake Nine", and a big barbeque later with our family had us all with perma-smiles on our faces that this week since has not erased.

Above all, my gratitude is overwhelming. So many things came together for us to make this swim: an amazing group of athletes and friends, our families who supported us, the helpful people running the boats, the anonymous tourists who kindly traded us their boat tickets, the weather, the water temperature, the good health that kept us all swimming strong. It was like a perfect storm of wonderfulness.