The sad thing is...

...I don't have to think twice about eating the salsa.

As soon as I drove off the campus of University of New Haven after dropping my son off for his first year away at college, I knew my life would be different and I knew it was going to be a long ride home alone.  I held it together while I was there for the day getting him settled in with the strangers who he would now be sharing his life.  10:30am - 3pm.  That was my alotted time to prepare both of us for the adjustment of our lives and to make sure his new life away from home was as comfortable and secure as it could possibly be.  5 hours to unpack and say goodbye to the one I've raised for 18 years leaving me feeling like I've abandoned him.  I suppose there are good reasons for these limitations.  I suppose some parents might be well inclined to stay the night if they were allowed.  I suppose I might be one of those parents.  I've been trying to prepare myself for several months now but there is nothing that can possibly be done to prepare for something like this.  You could say that I've had months to "say goodbye" and in a way I have, but it's different when you're in the moment.  Wheeling the empty suitcases back to the car is when it all hit me; trying to hide my face under my baseball cap so the cars passing by wouldn't think of me as weak.  Crying for 2 hours home then realizing after that long ride home alone when you pull into the driveway looking at the recently cut lawn that there may not be a reason to have even come home.  Realizing that you didn't take anything out of the freezer to thaw because there would be no one to cook for tonight so you settle for chips and salsa, briefly thinking of saving the salsa for Tyler because it's his favorite kind.  My bad.  It's the little things like starting laundry downstairs and seeing the empty space that used to house his XBox.  Or opening the freezer to have Tyler's mint chocolate chip ice cream staring me down.  All this emotion and I haven't even hit the whole house yet!

*sigh*

Yes, he's only away at college and some parents may deal with it differently or perhaps even be happy that their kids are away.  This is how it affects me because he has been my life for 18 years.  I will miss him plain and simple but I know he'll be ok.  I should be thankful we're at least in the same time zone.

It's Thursday.  I can't wait to see how lovely I look tomorrow for work...

The Games we Play

Today I rode 55 miles in 3:08.  I'm getting faster because perhaps now I actually know how to ride my bike, or I think I do anyway. Or perhaps after a year and a half of triathlon, someone finally told me to take off the geeky reflectors which I'm sure was causing some resistence. ;)  Or maybe my luck today was due to the fact that it wasn't hot out and maybe the slickness on the road due to the rain, "slid" me along just a tad bit faster.  Or maybe I should just give myself a little bit of credit in that I actually may be getting better.  Whatever the reason, I'll take it.  The biking leg is fastly becoming my favorite in this game and sometimes I think about taking the swim and run out of the equation and putting all of my focus on the two wheels.  I can't seem to pull that trigger just yet but we'll see what happens in the future.

Who is it that takes over when I hop on my bike? Suddenly, I'm in the middle of a race. I've placed myself there and there are only two of us with timing chips. I try to catch that invisible rider ahead of me but I can never catch her. That one song comes on that makes me pedal a little faster, a little harder but I continue to swallow her dust because she's listening to that same song.

...just one of the many games I play when I ride.

What games do you find yourself playing on the bike?  Or during any of parts of your training for that matter?  For me? ...

• I never go down to the lowest gear because there's no saving grace after that
• Can I go up that hill the second time around one gear higher than I did the last time?
• How soon before the top of a hill can I go up a gear or two to put more fire in my legs?
• How fast can I speed up before I begin an ascent? Yeah, like it's a mountain.
• I do NOT ride out of the saddle on climbs unless I've completely stopped and have fallen over.
• Can I do the second half of the ride all in the big chain ring?
• I adjust the angle of my ride just so I can laugh at myself.  "this...or this?"

My first Olympic race is this coming weekend and I'm really hoping that I do well despite the fact that I haven't been able to swim since my last race (2 weeks ago)..  It should be interesting to see how I pace myself.  After that, I have nothing planned...and this irritates me.  I do, however, have some swim sessions scheduled with an actual coach to help me with fundamentals.  Yep, you heard me right.  I actually swallowed that pill of pride and asked for help.  After all, two years of swimming and not getting any better...something must be wrong, right?

Has anyone seen my Mojo Batteries?

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. ~ Winston Churchill

Where the hell is my energizer bunny? I need a zap!

I'm not sure what's going on with me lately but my training schedule, or rather, the execution of my training schedule has been lacking to say the least. I'd like to spit nails but it seems I swallow them instead. I have no mojo and this dive I seem to have taken is disappointing in my eyes. For the past 2 months, I'd say, I've had no qualms about missing days of training whereas in the past, I'd mentally beat myself up for days for even thinking of skipping out or slacking with what I do. Plain and simple, there are other things I'd rather be doing at this moment in my life. A lot of eating seems to be one of those things. Do I need a break? I'm not sure I can say that since I feel I've been on a siesta time-out for more than just a couple of hours. Is it that the gray hairs and saggy boobs that have pounced on me proves that I'm getting old and for whatever reason, I feel like I deserve to just stop? Who could blame me, right? Wrong. I can't really say that either since that doesn't represent my way of thinking in the past. There have been a lot of changes in my life recently leaving me with a lot of things to contemplate and maybe all of those piled up things are starting to affect me negatively...maybe there's a slight bout of depression setting in.

I wish I had something to blame other than the fact that I'm just being lazy but there are reasons beyond my control like the poison ivy that invaded my arms and legs this past weekend leaving me unable to frolic in the pool. I know, I know, fellow triathletes...find some open water. That's easier said than done for me.  And this certainly doesn't have any relevance to my "I'll do it tomorrow" attitude prior to this weekend. The problems I've been having with my knee and ankle certainly have been detrimental to what was once productive training. But these issues are temporary and are getting better so what can I blame now? Nothing.  You would think watching the Olympics for the past 2 weeks or watching my girlfriend complete an Ironman would snap me out of this black hole and inspire me to push harder, but no.  I just need to get off my low rider and step up a few rungs on the ladder.  Now it's time to get off the vacation plane and take out the unknown on my poor bike and my new running shoes.

I need to keep going.  After all, I'm not done yet.

Mudder Style

Tough Mudder.  The new craze that's sweeping the nation...quite similar to 'baby fish mouth'...along with all of the other crazy obstacle course races that are constantly being engineered by people who just want to see other people endure as much pain as possible.  Tough Mudder in California on a ski slope a couple of weekends ago (gosh it's been almost 2 weeks already) was nothing to sneeze at.  I'm a triathlete after all.  There was no need to train, right?  **achoo** 

It was to be a day of hell but we all decided to surround that day with a great vacation out in Cali and when that Saturday arrived, we all started to get a little anxious about the unexpected.  After all, before the race even started we were expected to climb a wall to get to the starting line.  In the near distance we could see our first ascent and I think out all of our mouths came some form of 'You've got to be F*ing kidding me?' not realizing that this hill...is merely a pimple on the ass of Texas.  This is going to be a great day.

If you're not familiar with Tough Mudder, and you haven't clicked on the link at the beginning of this post, it's an obstacle course supposedly designed by British Special Forces to raise money for the Wounded Warrior Project.  These courses travel the world with variations at each site but generally, it's a 10-12 mile course designed to test your all around physical and mental strength.  Now let me remind you that this particular course was on a ski slope.  Generally, the average time to complete these races is 3 hours but this day on the slope took about 5 1/2.  Up and down a mountain 3 to 10 times takes it's toll and I felt just about the same fatigue when it was all over as if I had just completed a Half Ironman.  It was that exhausting. 

To start the day, we were informed that we needed to park in the overflow parking area because the lot at the ski resort was already full.  You would think that's no big deal because the word "overflow" usually implies 'down the street', 'next door at the flea market', '1 mile down at the elementary school', 'the big empty field 2 streets over'.  Good lord I would have taken any of those options but no, "overflow" in this context meant 10 miles in the opposite direction down the 1 lane mountain to the mini airport which then you will have to take a school bus (which apparently is required to pull over and let other cars pass every 2 minutes) back up the 1 lane mountain.  This may sound like an easy jaunt but when you have thousands of participants and spectators trying to get to the resort up that 1 lane mountain and school buses that are breaking down and catching fire from being overworked, it equals about an hour 1 way.  Needless to say, it was bad planning on the part of the Mudder staff.  Especially since we needed to make that same "jaunt" when the race was over.  Did I mention that our cabin was 3 miles from the ski resort?  So yeah, we were psyched we signed up for this race.  This is a great day already.

Let's get to the obstacles.  As I mentioned before, we had to climb a wall to even get to the starting line.  This, in and of itself, got the nerves up.  What the hell was waiting for us?  I'll tell ya what wasn't waiting for us...water.  Dust getting tossed up from the very start of the race.  Our tongues were stuck to the roofs of our mouths and everyone was spitting out dust buckets.  Every corner we turned and at the top of every climb, we were on our knees praying for a water station.  We never thought we'd have to wait almost 2 miles!  And that's not the worst of it.  The only nutrition on the course was bananas.  I wish I could tell you how good those bananas tasted but when we got to every water station, all the bananas were gone and not restocked...  That's right, we had no food throughout the entire race and by the end, we had no energy for the last few obstacles.  Poor planning on our part or Mudder's part?  Lesson learned.

Right, the obstacles!  The most notable obstacles by far...

Arctic Enema. WTF?? A giant pit of water filled to the top with a shit load of ice!  Not to mention the wood beam spanning across the width of the pit which forced total submersion.  Holy numb nuts!  Doesn't sound bad but when you come out and every part of you is numb and immobile, you wonder why you're doing this event at all.  Especially when this is only obstacle #2.  I believe this is where most of the F bombs were dropped that day.

Cliffhanger. This was what I swear had to be an 80 degree incline up to the very top of the mountain.  I also swear that it felt a mile long but was probably not even a 1/4 of a mile.  It sucked and there is no picture that does this hill justice.

Walk the Plank. A 15 foot jump off a plank into the water.  But be careful, those military dudes are telling you to jump when people haven't yet moved out of the way in the water.  Half the lake ended up my nose that day because I was so worried about losing my bandana.

Electric Eel:  Crawling under barbed wire with active electric wires hanging down. Yay.  There's no escape from getting zapped and I did come out of that one crying...not sure if anyone saw that. :)  And I did have a bruise on my ass from a really good zap.

Hold Your Wood. Doesn't sound so bad but when you have to carry wood up an 80 degree incline (I swear it was 80, ok, maybe 50), it's tiring.  And when we got to the top of that incline, we thought we were done.  Nope.  Let's carry that wood for another 3/4 of a mile, shall we?  Kill me.

Electroshock Therapy:  Who wants to run through live wires? Not this girl!  Especially after the Electric Eel!  I wish I could give details on this one but only one brave soul in our party defeated this obstacle.  Yay, Jen!! She rocks!

We finished minus a few obstacles at the end due to sheer fatigue and lack of nutrition.  You girls rock!!  When's the next one???

Rafting 101

Cahulawassee River. A fictitious river in Georgia but I swear that's where I was yesterday...

I wasn't in Georgia but I sure was way the hell up in bumfuck Maine about 20 miles from the Canadian border white water rafting where their most adored entertainment is jumping off a bridge into the Kennebec River.  No thanks.  Every year I go on a trip with a local radio station hoping to get my adrenaline fix in for the year.  I guess you got to know the right people because every year I'm asked to go or I legitimately win the trip.  Hopefully that means I'm good company...or I buy too many rounds.  Along on the trip are about 30 radio station listeners and you know how there's always one in the crowd who leaves that permanent stamp on the trip?  That person who the DJ's rag on for years after?  Well, this year it was the Joe Pesci clone-a-like.  Now, I'm not particularly fond of Joe Pesci nor do I think he's even a titty bit funny (which may explain my rising level of irritation throughout the 2 days) but this guy sounded just like him whenever he opened his mouth...which was too often.  Sort of like an annoying Fran Drescher voice or nails on a chalkboard.  But not only did he talk often, he talked loud. He doesn't need a microphone.  He doesn't need a megaphone.  He's loud.  You know those people...the ones who want everyone to know what they're saying?  I may be just a wee bit cranky pants lately but it's really a good thing that I didn't have my fluorescent duct tape with me because after the first twenty minutes of having to listen to him because he was sitting right behind me on the bus, I was ready to rip off just enough duct tape to be able to wad it up into a jumbo ball that would perfectly fit into his mouth, then duct tape his mouth shut, then his hands, then his feet and then throw him under the bus with the luggage.  *sigh*  It's a good thing I brought alcohol on that bus...unfortunately, he did too which made him even louder.

Typically it takes about 5 1/2 hours on the bus to get to The Forks, Maine which is where the rafting company resides.  We leave at 8am Sunday morning, beers cracked at 8:01, get to CrabApple between 3 and 4 and then we're free to do whatever for the rest of the day.  Then Monday morning we raft, have our cookout, look at our video and pictures, then back on the bus for another 5 1/2 hours home.  It's an exhausting trip and I'm not as young as I used to be but it's free and fun.  Since there's really nothing but moose up in that area, the only thing to do is drink at the bar.  So that's what I did...that's what we all did.  It's always a late night and there's always a few people who don't make it on the river the next day because they're busy puking in their rooms.  They're missing out because they obviously don't realize that the first rapid you hit, you're immediately cured of any hangover.

Anyway, we get on the river and I'm at the front of the raft setting the pace.  We hit the first rapid (hangover gone) and it's incredible!  What was supposed to only be 4500 cfs (cubic feet of water per second) ended up being 6500 cfs for the day.  This is a great flow to ride and the day did not prove that wrong!  However, when the guide tells everyone to listen up because the next rapid today will be brutal.  Well, then you listen up.  And as he proceeds to tell us how we'll enter the rapid (sideways) and everyone will need to HOLD ON instead of paddling through it because the raft will most likely stop suddenly if we hit it just right, I start to get nervous.  If that's not enough..."Oh and Brenda, this will most likely affect (effect? I can never remember) you so it would be great if you could make an extra effort to stay in the boat".  Uhmmmm...anyone wanna switch places with me please???  Jesus save me now because I'm stuck here in this spot and I have fallen out before...it's not fun.  As everyone pats me on the back wishing me luck, I decide to buck up little lady and take it like a beast.  It happened just like he said.  We hit the rapid sideways (on the side opposite me), everyone held on, the boat stopped short just like it hit a wall, everyone on my side of the boat got thrown to the other side but I was so worried about crushing the person next to me that I used every bit of strength I had to not fly into him which, looking back, was probably the defining factor that led to my fate.  Because all the weight was on the other side of the boat except for me, I went flying out of the boat into the water still holding on to the rope, the paddle and my hat.  I tried to hold on but the current was so strong that if I didn't let go, I would have ripped my arm right out of the socket.  So I reluctantly let go.  It's funny, you think that if you're going through rapids that you'll pleasantly roll up the top of each wave and come down gingerly on the other side.  Well it doesn't happen that way, folks.  You pretty much crash through the middle of each wave and you have to make sure you have the sense to time your breathing because the rapids come at you fast!  Anyway, I tried to remember all the safety tips in the safety lecture from the morning but when panic sets in, it's hard to focus.  I was in the last raft of the day and all of the other rafts had already pulled over to make sure everyone made it through the rapid.  There's me in the water with my feet forward, timing my breathing going down the middle of the river feeling like I'm the prize at an auction and everyone's watching and bidding on my survival. Past 1 boat, past the second boat.  Rescue bags being thrown my way but I can't see because I'm either in the middle of a wave swallowing a few fish or I'm wiping whitewater from my face.  Past the third boat... Now because I pay such close attention to detail, I know how many boats were ahead of us so I have a pretty good idea of when my last option for rescue has arrived.  And here it comes...the first boat in our crew.  Then I panic.  If I don't catch this rescue bag, I'll be washed up on shore way down the river surely to end up smack dab in the middle of a scene from Deliverance.  I think I can already hear the dualing banjos....  I quickly get my senses back and watch as the guide throws me the bag from his boat.  If I don't catch this bag, I'm screwed because it's a long ride down the river even at 6500 cfs and there are still some monster rapids left!  I don't want to go through those rapids on my back!  There's 75 feet of rope in the bag so even if I don't grab the rope, I have to at least grab that bag!  How hard can it be, right?  Well, it's hard when your panicking.  I missed the rope because I was going too fast but luckily, the bag was tossed slightly past me and I was able to grab it.  Ok now, 75 feet of rope has to come to an end.  I can't grab the rope yet because I'll burn my hands so soon, I need to prepare myself for a massive jerk.  And....there it is.  I thought my arms would be ripped out of my sockets!  That poor guide.  His workout for the day is done because I'm sure pulling a 135lb woman 75 feet against the current isn't an easy task but that's what they train for, right?  Maybe he deserves a tip for saving me.  :) 

All of this still holding on to my paddle and also managing to keep my hat on and my contacts in!  What seemed like an hour in the drink was really only about a 2 minutes.  It's amazing how much shit goes through your head in that short amount of time!  I believe my adrenaline quota has been met!

70.3 from hell

The temperature of the water was 69.5 at the Patriot Half Ironman.  I thought this might be a good sign as to how the day might turn out once I crossed that finish line.  But alas...

I was pretty excited about the race even though I hadn't been able to run in a couple of months and the few times I did run I felt great so I didn't feel there was anything to worry about.  The water was warm for the swim so I opted out of my long sleeves and I was so glad I did!  As usual, I stayed at the back of the pack before the gun went off hoping I could work my way in as people started claiming their own space.  Things were going smoothly for awhile then it started getting a little choppy...who would have thought those little chop waves could push you so far off the course?  I think I spent half the time trying to work my way closer to the buoys and I'm sure that I swam an extra 1/2 mile in the process!  When you fight your way back across traffic like that though, you're bound to run into a few beasts who won't stand for getting their stroke interrupted so for those times, I got my goggles punched off... for a total of 3 times.  Maybe I still have some things to learn.  T1 was uneventful with the exception of getting a cramp in my left calf muscle taking off my wetsuit.  That, of course, affected the rest of my race because it was a pretty bad cramp and it is still sore today.

Not one porta potty that I saw on the bike course.  Not one.  During my 70.3 last year I had to pee so bad that I tried to relieve myself while riding and I just couldn't do it.  I couldn't relax enough, worrying about peeing on someone behind me.  This time...well, I had no choice but to give it another try because my bladder was so far extended that my quads were hitting it with every pedal stroke.  And this time I was successful!  Ahhhhh, relief.  But as much as my power felt restored, it was one of the most disgusting things I've done in a long time and I'm not quite positive I'll ever do it again.  Maybe next time I'll just consider wearing a diaper or better yet just put one of these on my bike seat to soak everything up!  Yes, this is a true story...right next to me on the bike rack.

Besides all the grease that ended up on my face from fixing my slipped chain and my piss excursion, nothing really much exciting.  I felt good and I made good time.

As I'm pulling into T2, the path they're making everyone take to get into transition is all the way down at the opposite end of the run out.  Guess where my bike is?  Yep, at the end of the run out.  So as I'm biking in, I only have to take maybe 12 steps to get to my bike but instead, I have to run all the way to the other end of transition and then run back up the entire length of the transition area to get to my bike.  I see where this day is headed...hence, the lengthy T2 time.

Who's taking pictures?  Why didn't anyone tell me I looked like a member of KISS with the chain grease all over my face?  When your girlfriend tells you that you look beautiful, you should believe her, right?  The pictures tell a different story.  Anyway, as I start my run, I give every ounce of effort to look strong for my loved ones cheering me on.  But my legs are so weak!  I knew that I was in trouble when I had to stop 3 times before I reached the first mile!  This is gonna suck.  I guess I didn't do enough bricks during training but eventually my legs came through for me.  Then at about mile 4, my ankle started to complain from a previous injury.  Not the normal running kind of complain that's typical for me but a true pain.  One you can't push through.  This was the start of a lonnnngggg 13.1 miles.  All I can think is that my ankle was weaker due to the lack of running.  It sounds good but it didn't feel good.  On top of that frustration along with my sore calf muscle, let's pile on the fact that I needed so badly to take a crap!  3 porta potties.  All with a line of people waiting.  Yep, for the entire 13.1 miles I needed to go to the bathroom and couldn't.  I'm sure all of my tri friends know that it's not easy to run with that pain.  I've been reduced to a mere trot but I did finish.  I guess I should be thankful for that even though I added 30 minutes to my last HIM...*sigh*.  My hope was to finish under 6 hours.  I wasn't anywhere close to that but my disappointment isn't really with my time but that I don't feel I pushed myself to my fullest potential.  6 hours wasn't realistic in my condition but I was hoping... I know I should still be proud.  I just can't, not this time.  But I am so very thankful for all the support I had that day!  It's such a long day for spectators, I know this first hand.  So thanks to my family and friends for being there for me!

Next up...Crabman and Cranberry!~ oiy!