Preparing for Hood2Coast

I am using the word "preparing" very loosely because so far, I have nothing packed.

BUT,

I wrote a list.

I wanted to pack today but I just could not get off the couch.  I don't want to say I am sick, because it would be the absolutely worst timing and therefore, absolutely impossible, however I do think I have a head cold, complete with coughing, cloudy head, and of course, lots of snot.  

I am resting. I took some cold medicine. I am feeling optimistic.

This race has required relentless optimism.  First, my burn out and back injury made me question if I would even want to go.  Next, I hurt foot, which made me question if I even could go.

My foot started to feel better and I began to think about my three legs.  I am the second runner, which means I my first run is at the bottom of Mount Hood and entirely downhill.  I picked this specifically because I wanted the experience of running down Mount Hood.  It is going to be breathtaking.

To prepare for the downhill, I did some repeats up A Mountain.  This is not a random mountain, it is literally named "A Mountain" because it is adorned with an A:

Just like people warned me, the impact of the downhill left my quad muscles screaming.  They were tender to the touch before the day was over!  And, so was my downhill training, since it took days to recover.

Remaining optimistic, I bought a pair of Hokas.  Supposedly, these are supposed to lesson the impact of running, which seemed ideal for my situation.   In some ways, the Hokas live up to their promise - it is like placing your foot on a pillow with every step.  But they are also big and clunky - a dangerous component for an uncoordinated runner on a mountain.  Plus, when worn with other modern day running trends (i.e., compression socks and running skirt), it makes one look less like a runner and more like a go-go dancer.

To be clear, I have nothing against go-go dancers.  I am just not sure that is the look I want to represent in Oregon.  

I have been to Oregon multiple times to visit one of my best friends.  I have ran up and down many mountains in Oregon.  Those runs are some of my fondest memories.

So, while I am not in my best shape, I am very excited to return to the homeland of running and my favorite state!   I am also very excited to take a lot pictures and write a  race report.  It has been awhile since I've written a race report.  I am hoping to feel out of my slump soon.

"You'll come down from the Lurch, with an unpleasant bump.

And the chances are, then, that you'll be in a Slump.

And when you're in a Slump, you're not in for much fun,

Un-slumping yourself is not easily done." 

Chin Stand

Life has been humdrum lately.
I'll say it:  I am bored.
Every day, be it a Monday or Sunday, is exactly the same.

I suppose this is normal when parenting young kids who crave consistency.  Every day they want to eat the same food, go to the same places and watch the same TV show.  Not only the same TV show, but the same episode.  Sometimes I go into the office to work.  Sometimes I go to my chiropractor.

I usually draw excitement from my racing but as you all can tell, it's non-existent these days.  There are a few reasons:
First, I mentally burnt out.
Next, I hurt my while practicing my coveted chin stand.
Finally, the top of foot started to hurt (most likely a pinched nerve).

After 2.5 weeks of bike rides, Master swim sessions, relentless icing, and drinking some nasty inflammatory supplement my mother gave me, I am back to pain-free, yet prudent, running.  Hood2Coast is in less than two weeks so I am teetering that fine line between staying in shape and staying un-injured.

Hood2Coast is going to be amazing - but it's not a typical race. I didn't train, nor do I have any expectations.

There is a part of me that wants to train for an upcoming triathlon, just to get that element of excitement back into my life.  But, you can't fake motivation.  You can only wait for it.

I was feeling down about my lack of progress this year, in ANYTHING - fitness related or not - but slightly uplifted after attending a mid-day yoga class over the weekend.  This is an usual thing for me to do and quite the treat.  I learned a new pose that is similar to the chin stand, but much less demanding on your back.  After failing at my chin stand goal, this gave me a small and much needed lift. Sometimes the small things make me smile the most.

I have no idea what this pose is called, but you start in an arm stand, like you are about to breakdance:

 

And then you tripod using your chin and your arms:

And finally you extend your legs, while still balancing on your arms, into the air!!

This kids are not impressed in the slightest.  But they wouldn't blink if I was doing backflips while juggling bananas so it doesn't put a damper on my only recent success story.  

I also get the satisfaction of crossing "chin stand" off my to-do list.

CHIN STAND

I hope Hood2Coast rekindles my relationship with running.  Although I will be sleep deprived, I think it may also be refreshing.  Even though I have whined and complained about wanting a vacation for years, I cannot remember the left time I left the state.  Maybe we just all need a break, even from the things we love the most.

Look What Happens when I skip a few Posts......

My kids, the former babies, went ahead and turned FOUR.

Although I am a little beside myself that I am the mother of two kids rather than two toddlers (I mean, lets be real, I am still bewildered that I am a mother at all), I am more phased by the fact that older kids = older mom.  Sometimes I look at my face in the mirror, see my smile lines and forehead creases, and I just cannot help but think, HOW CAN I BE THIS OLD?????

But, for the past week, I have calmed myself by reminding myself at least it is not *my* birthday.  My birthday is still 5 months away.  It's bitter-sweet because even though I hate turning a year older, I absolutely love my birthday.  So, after I feel relieved it's not my birthday, I feel disappointed.

It's complicated.

This is the first year the kids were aware it was their birthday.  They have been to a few birthday parties and noted that birthdays meant cake and presents.  For the past four months, Hayden has started his morning by asking, "Is it my Birthday?  Is it my Birthday?"

After the 115th time, it became annoying.  So, I was thrilled when I could finally answer, "Yes.  YES.  YES!!!!!!

We threw them a party at a little gym.  They ate pizza.  They got presents.  They had cake.  We picked out the cake together; the pink sand was Brenna's idea.

It was pretty good cake, as long as you like things that taste like sugar.

I learned two things from this whole birthday-party throwing experience:
1) Birthday parties are expensive.
2) Birthday parties are exhausting.

When we got home, my husband plopped on the couch and I went into the kitchen with the bakery box of leftover cake.  I placed most of the cake in a Tupperware container and placed it in the freezer.  Leftover freezer cake is the best kind of cake.  Then I noticed there was a lot of cake residue stuck to the bottom of the box.  And tons of icing abandoned on the side.

I scraped my finger/hand along the bottom of the box and sides of the box to acquire an impressive, although unattractive, mountain of cake mush.  Cake mush is the second best of cake, especially since no one else will eat it - so forks be damned and hands be shovels!  Usually, when shovel cake mush into my mouth, it's in the privacy of my kitchen at 5am.  But in my fatigued state, I forgot it was the middle of the day.  I looked up to see my husband staring at me, eyes wide and jaw agape.

I guess I am lucky it took him this long to see me in such an act.  And, I will  not lie, I have visited the freezer cake every day since the birthday party.

My ignominious interaction with cake mush was not my intention for writing today - but between this and the tangent about my age, my writing time has encountered lunch time.

And NO, I am not going to eat cake for lunch.


I already did that before my morning swim.

Acclimation or Acceptance?

Summer has continued to be humid and gross.  But it is also flying by - I am in denial that we are this deep in July.  I also recently started working 100% home, which is great for triathlons because you can work around your training instead of training around your work schedule.  Not that I am doing much  training...but I like the potential.

At first, finding discipline was difficult because theoretically, I COULD RUN ALL DAY.  The weather has at least helped solve that problem since working involves air conditioning.  Also, I discovered I work better in a cubical-like environment: a small space with few distractions.  I created this space using the bathroom vanity.  It actually works great - I purchased some Crayola mirror-markers to transform the mirror into a white board.

The only downside is I am working next to a toilet.  Although, I do always appreciate any opportunity for increased efficiency.

When not at my vanity workstation, the kids and I are often at McDonalds.  I have always been a fan of their little ice cream cones.  I do miss the day that they were only .50 cents and you had the option of chocolate or swirl.  I used to always order swirl.

But I will settle for vanilla.  The kids settle for vanilla, too.  And if you think that its weird I choose to work in the bathroom, you will find it really weird that my kids eat their ice cream cones with a spoon!

After they finish their ice cream, they get lost in the tunnels that smell like pee.  Sometimes they disappear in them for a good 30-minutes.  

Sometimes they sit up there and just stare at me.   Sometimes they plaster their face to the plastic windows.  Sometimes they even lick the windows.  This boggles my mind.  They refuse to lick an ice cream cone but cannot resist licking a booger-crusted, snot-coated, pee-infused piece of stinky plastic?

Anyway, the good news is that my back is recovering.  It only hurts when I back bend.  And, my running is recovering as well - my legs are finding their spring and I am finding myself enjoying it again.  I am not sure if I am acclimating to the humidity or simply accepting the fact that the weather sucks.  Part of pain is perception so while I cannot control the weather, I can change the way I allow it to control me.  I think this is why running massively appeals to type A personalities - physical ailments aside, you always have an element of control.  Although you cannot always change your running conditions, you can change the way you deal with them.  It only sucks if you tell yourself it sucks.

Feeling a Bit Burnt Out

I don't know if its the summer heat, or just lack of giving myself a substantial break, but I am feeling rather burnt out.   Nik, maybe that is I did not update for a full week - my facebook feed is full of people who are always training for a half Ironman, if not a full Ironman, so it seems a bit wussy to be burnt out from doing 5Ks and sprint triathlons.

My body is not encouraging me either because I pinched a nerve in my lower back.  It either happened from not properly getting out of full-camel position, or during my nightly attempts at chin stands.  I was feeling pretty awesome about being able to do a chin stand, but just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.  At least without learning the proper form first.

My yoga teacher used the term "over-compressed" so my chiropractor has since "decompressed" me twice.  But, my low back still feels weird.  However, when I was image Googling chin stands to find a picture, I found a bunch of other poses I want to try so clearly I have not learned my lesson.

So, the solution to feeling burnt out seems rather simple - I should just take a break, right?  But my life is so compartmentalized:  my family time - my work time - and my hobby time (with also is my alone time and my social time).  If I don't have my hobby, I have a void.

But it's not so much that I don't WANT to run, it's that I don't want to HAVE to run.

Recently, my son has been obsessed with my Garmin.  Every day, for a few weeks, he has asked for a "running watch that he can put on his bike."  I finally found a stop watch that could fit his little wrist.  It's not a Garmin, but it has stop and start buttons...the only two features he cares about.

It's not unusual for me to feel this way during this summer.  And although it has been awhile, it is not unusual for me to give my Garmin a break and run just to run.   I am considering temporarily trading watches my son.  My only hesitation is can I trust him to not put my Garmin in the toilet?

The irony in all this is I just agreed to get coached.  This was my first week and I blew off 75% of the workouts.  Even though my mind wants to be motivated, I just cannot fake it.  Or force it.

So, despite the fact I do not want to write this, I declare July a recovery month.  In August, I am doing Hood2Coast and I will end the season with one last triathlon in September.

Even though the heat has made me officially surrender, my kids are handling it better than they were a few weeks ago.  We have been having fun at the pool.

And the movies.

And Hayden discovered that if he wears his hat and his sunglasses, the sun will stay out of his eyes!

Beat the Heat Report

This was an inaugural race, held on a historically hot weekend, at the hottest time of the day (2:42pm). The hottest temperature recorded on this day was 112, so to be cute, the race distance was 11.2K.  (Although it was really over 7 miles...I guess it's like the 28 mile bike ride in my last Olympic triathlon).

It was pretty hot - around 105 at the start and 108 at the finish.  However, had they waited one more weekend we all would have been in for a real challenge - the forecast for this upcoming weekend is 117 degrees! It's not so much the temperature that I struggle with though, but rather the position of the sun.  At 3pm, the sun directly pounds your skin and there is no escape.  Brenna always demands that I park in the shade when we are looking for a spot in a parking lot...those shrubs do not produce much shade.

Arizona is a dry heat though.  When the air is dry, your sweat cools down your skin, as designed.  My plan for this race was to stop at every single water station to 1) drink water, and 2) pour water on my head to stay wet.  There were 12 water stations, so nearly one every half-mile.

Before the race, we were all squished into a horse stadium.  This stadium was air conditioned but squeezing 1,000 people into such a small place negated any cooling effects.  There was a pre-race yoga class though...it was not very popular but I jumped right in.

The race started inside the stadium and we quickly ran into the bright sunlight.  It felt like a normal race and I constantly caught myself cautiously reigning in the pace.  At 3pm, I always have my kids, so I was not able to train to run this race fast - it was more like an experiment.  How much would it suck?

It didn't suck at all for Miles 1- 3.  In fact, I felt great.
There was a girl in front of me that I desperately wanted to pass, but I played the patient card and stayed at a comfortable pace.  Right after Mile 3, I passed the girl.   Mile 4 was in a headwind, and on a golf course filled with small but steep ups and downs.  This is when I started getting tired.

Mile 5 is when I started getting hot.  I had to adjust my water-station pattern from:

stop - pour water on my head - walk to next cup - drink water - run (5 seconds)

to:

stop - pour water on my head - walk to next cup - drink water - walk to next cup - pour water on my head - walk to next cup - drink water - run (10-15 seconds).

I still think that adding 10-15 seconds at the water stations was a lesser evil than not properly hydrating and slowing my pace by perhaps minutes per mile.

I never found any additional girls to pass and zoned out for a few miles.  I arrived back in reality at the last water station and realized that I was  very hot and thirsty.  But I could see the finish -- I just had to slosh through a sprinkler-soaked grass field first.  I tried to gracefully leap over puddles but as always, I landed right in the middle of each one.

At the finish, reporters asked me questions about the race.  No one offered me water.
I staggered around for awhile, looking for water or, even better, watermelon.  I did find snow cones, which would be AWESOME if you had $2.

Post-race refreshments were replaced with a water slide.

The top 10 finishers won prize money.  This attracted a large professional field.  Unfortunately, the four professional women could not contend with the men.  Oddly, there were no overall women's awards so they were lumped into the age-groupers.  And, us age-groupers did not win money - we won Arabian Horse Show tickets!  Which, I think is pretty cool because my kids will like it.  I was 5th female.

At the finish, a reporter asked me if I would do this race again.
I told them, "Maybe."

Maybe if they provide watermelon.

Reverse Triathlon & Reverse Psychology

I have always wanted to try a reverse triathlon.  I was hesitant for a few different reasons.   In a normal triathlon, I slush out of the water seeded in the middle of the pack.  For the rest of the race, I get to silently sneak up on the swimmers, one by one.  I enjoy this chase. It's like a game.

But reversing this process completely changes this game.  The motivation is no longer to hunt people down, but to be the hunted.  It's too much pressure.  I don't perform well under pressure.

My second reservation was the pool. Supposedly, a few years ago, someone almost drowned during a reverse triathlon.  So now, they all take place in a pool.  That way, if you get tired, you simply get out of the pool instead of drown in the lake.  It makes sense.  But, there are lane lines and I am not good at serpentine swims.

But I found myself itching to do something and since it's 110+ degrees outside, there are not a lot of options.

However, I surprised myself by really enjoying the reverse order.  Starting with the run was a larger advantage than I anticipated because I was able to run to my full ability!  Normally, I am tired, hot, thirsty and filled with gut-eating lake bacteria by the time I finally start my run.  Starting fresh meant starting fast.  And fast is always fun.

The run was supposed to be 4 miles but I returned to the transition at only 3.5.  "That way, That way!" someone shouted.  They were pointing to the back to the transition.  I thought maybe you had to keep running and then u-turn, to make it 4 miles.  So....I kept running.

That was wrong.

The course was short.

Even though I lost a minute or so, I still had the lead going onto the bike.  

The bike course was easy, four straight loops.  I averaged 22mph.

When I finished my bike, I stood by a water cooler and drank four cups of water.  I never thought I would want to swim but in a unique moment of excessive sweat, swimming sounded fun.

And the cold water felt good.  As much as I do not like the serpentine, it was nice to be able to see my hands, the feet in front of me and not worry about sighting.  The swim went quickly and I was the first woman out of the water.  This was nice because I was able to watch the rest of the race, including my friends battle it out for second and third place.  I was relieved to not involved in that tight of a race.  Just like I don't like the pressure of being chased, I don't like the pressure of a photo-finish.  Even at awards they were still battling it out.

Not to say though that I have not had my own battles lately.

Everyone has been telling me that I need to regain control of my princess.  One constant thing that I always ask of Brenna is to pull her hair in a ponytail.  Or braid. Or half ponytail.  Or bun.  Or ANYTHING to keep it out of her face.  When her hair is in her face, it is a magnet for food and dirt.
Brenna's constant response to this request is always been "No."  If I dared to pull it back anyway, she simply pulled it out.

In a bold move to make a point that I have control, I threatened Brenna:
"Let me pull it back in a ponytail or I will cut it off."

FYI, I said this while looking at her beautiful, original curls of baby hair.
Of course I did not want to cut it off.
And I knew that girly-Brenna would not want to cut it off, either.
Maybe it would sting - but maybe that is what we needed.

However, Brenna was not about to lose control of her hair by just an idle threat. In an unexpected act, she looked me in the eye and said, "Cut it."

I couldn't back down - so we went to Great Clips.  There was a 15-minute wait.
We sat down.
I took a magazine and found a young girl with very short hair.  I showed it to Brenna.
I quizzed her: "Are you sure you want your hair to look like that?" 

She held the magazine in her lap and studied it for many minutes.

I patiently waited for her to say no.

Instead, she sat there until a stylist called her name.  And, without any prompting, she walked up to the stylist, handed her the magazine, and said with decisiveness, "I want that."

The stylist was very impressed and shocked to learn that this was her first haircut.

I was shocked that my daughter was really about get her first haircut.

Brenna sat very still the entire time.  I watched her face.
It was a hard face to read.  Maybe one day she will play poker.

When the cut was complete, we stood in front of the mirror.  "I like it."  I said.  "Do you?"

She explored her new hair with her hands.  "Yes," she answered.

I forced a smile.  She forced a smile.
And her beautiful hair was placed in a sandwich bag.

But her hair has been effortlessly out of her face ever since.
And at the end of day, there are no longer clumps of  amalgamated cereal milk, apple sauce, sand and snot.

So although a battle - and although it's questionable - I am claiming the win.