Let's Talk

This post has been a long time coming. I've written it in my head several times but have never put it on paper. It is a bit of an issue I have really struggled with talking about beyond a few people but today being today it is the day to say it. To put it out there. I'm scared. Of being judged. Of being dismissed. But it's important that others know they aren't alone. And if Clara Hughes can do then so can I.

For the last few years I have been fighting. Fighting to quiet the voices in my head that have told me that everything I do is wrong. That everything I am is less. That everything I think is dumb. And I have let those voices rule.

They say that you can quell these voices. That you can argue back. That you can point to all of the evidence out there that contradicts these messages. But what if the evidence you see only confirms it? What if what people say is the same as what the voices in your head are telling you? It wore me out. Beat me down.

Everything I did felt harder. Hard to get up in the morning. Too much to think about leaving the house. Hard to talk on the phone even with friends and family. It becomes a matter of day to day, sometimes hour to hour, survival to not succumb to the urge to hide from the world.

There were many days I struggled to get out of bed. There were days where the bed won. There were times I would become so overwhelmed by fear of the darkness in my head that I would sit on the floor of the shower unable to leave.

There was guilt. For not calling people. For being a burden.

And there was shame.

It was exhausting to live like this. But there was always something feeding the snake. A comment. A result. A number. The influx of negative things feeding the snake, strengthening its voice. It was hard to reason with the voice when the factors on the outside aligned with it.

I won't go into details as to the major external factor but suffice to say that actions do speak as loud or louder then words and those words were pretty loud and influential at the time.

And then one day a change occurred and suddenly that outside factors was gone. A major source of the snakes fodder was gone. It was replaced by its opposite. For the first time in a long time the positive evidence outweighed the negative and I knew the snake could be fought. A lion was born. A small roar in the darkness. A will to fight came alive. And other outside influences entered. Feeding the lion. Building it. Making her stronger.

A lot has happened in the year of less blogging. There is less evidence for the voices to use these days. The Lion has grown and has plenty of weapons to fight back with. I feel more often that I am winning. It is easier. I notice it in training too. It is so much easier to push through the agony of a hard session when your Lion is roaring and that snake is silenced.

Not that I don't have days where the snake's voices grow loud. But I am learning to listen with a grain of salt, with my lion by my side. I have hope that I will not be in the darkness for all my life.

Back at it

On Sunday we put the first real full week of training behind us for 2012. Sure we had done some workouts off and on through January, but not a whole week of showing up to every workout and busting our butts. And it was a tough week. Bodies were achy and tired by the end. But what a difference consistency makes.

Wednesday evening at the track, Pants and I both had some of the best run splits we've seen in a long time and then Sunday, both in the pool and on the run afterward, I felt a hundred times better than the previous week. And while we jumped right off the eating healthy train at our Super Bowl party Sunday evening, the body is generally responding happily to being back at it.

We've also been blessed with another of our fabulous February weather turns. It's been warm and sunny for the last week and the only thing that has stopped me from truly thinking this is paradise is that I'm stuck in the office looking out at it when the sun is shining and still doing workouts in the dark. Still, I can't really complain about looking out at snow capped mountains bathed in 13 degree sunshine (55 F for those of you in the American audience) in the middle of February.

** Not the best pic, but the best I could do hanging out the office window, with my iPhone :)

Less gears is more fun

Last fall I got a new bike for commuting purposes. I was getting tired of swapping tires on the cross bike (knobby tires are too expensive to go ride them smooth on the road just to get to work) and I couldn't ride Pink Mamba (my Orbea Onix) in the rain so a new bike was needed. And I knew what I wanted. A single speed.

Now to reassure those of you (if there are any yous left out there after our dismal performance last year) who are all to familiar with the skinny jean, helmetless, ironic t-shirt clad, brakeless hipsers - I am not one of those. I wear spandex. And a helmet. And wool base layers (um... actually that last one might be borderline hipster or something). But I do have a single speed. It has breaks. And right now it has a free wheel instead of a fixed gear. That's more out of practicality than anything - my ride to work has a big ascent and descent both ways and spinning away like a hamster on a frictionless wheel was not appealing.

But I have to say: I LOVE THIS BIKE. She's a Specialized Langster with the LA paint job, pink fenders, and pink tires. Fabulous. This is Holly (short for Hollywood or Holly Golightly).

(A slightly older picture of Holly - she now has a front fender and is rather more dirty from many many rides to work in crappy weather)

And single speed riding? It's super fun. I can't explain it really except to say it's like riding your first bike all over again. She makes me happy and makes me look forward to riding to work. Well riding with her and the amazing sunrises I have has the privileged to see in the last few months:

And the log booms on the Fraser:

It has been a great 4 months of commuting with Holly 4 days a week (now to be 3 as spinning has started and I have to haul a trainer etc with me on Thursdays). And holy moly have I gotten stronger for it too. Hawaii was the first proof I've had that my strength has increased.

Although after singing her praises, I confess: I don't wanna ride home tongiht. It's pouring out. Sigh. Well at least it'll fun. Soggy but fun.

New Year - New Post

Just before the end of 2011 Captain Pants and I discussed how when the new year hit we were going to be more disciplined. That would mean more training for one, better eating for two, and more posting here as well. Then January came and things were completely crazy. It wasn't all bad, of course. We had a trip to Maui from the 7th to the 15th, which was completely amazing. But after that, Pants got sick, I had a trip to Chicago for work for a week, then I got sick, and so we're only just starting to get ourselves settled back in.

I can promise that we'll put up some Maui pictures shortly and brag about how amazing the riding was on the road to Hana and the West Loop. But for now, a simple hello and promise that we'll be back to posting more often this year.

Promise promise. I swear on carbon we'll be back.

Vancouver Sprint Triathlon

Bad Blogger Alert! I’m back with a race report though. Now, I know what you’re thinking: race report? But Brian, you’re not even training! Yeah … about that …

A friend of ours has convinced me to race the Self-Transcendence Olympic distance in Victoria at the end of July. Foolishly, I thought that sounded like a really good idea. After all, it’s a fun event with a good spread of food afterward (leave it to me to be convinced by food). Then the opportunity came up to do a “dry-run” with the Vancouver Sprint last weekend, so I decided to give it a go.

My prep was interesting. I’ve been riding the new road bike all spring, so hadn’t been on the tri-bike at all. The weekend before the race, I thought it would make good sense to try the Guru and try running off the bike for the first time all year. I drove down to the course start and did the bike course pretty hard and ran most of the run course, suffering immensely. It would appear that “speed work” might have benefited me this season, but what the heck – I can wing it, right?

With Amy away on a girls’ weekend (I think the title she gave it was marginally less delicate), it was the first race I’ve done where I was on my own. Race morning dawned too early as always, and I headed down. One of the nice things about the Vancouver race is that the Half Iron wave goes off way before the sprint wave, so even though I had to be there early just to get parking, I had tons of time to settle in and do a good warmup. As it turns out, I also had time to change a flat for the guy parked across from me in transition when he was panicking 10 minutes before his swim start in the ½ IM. I told him to just put his wetsuit on and get ready – I’d take care of it for him. I wish I had caught his name to check how his day went, but happily, he at least made the start in time and had air in both tires when he got into T1.

The race was quite a bit larger than the first time I raced Vancouver in ’08. The nearly 150 men were in the first wave. While that number isn't huge, it's cramped into a pretty small area and with just 150 meters to the first turn, the start was very hectic. The ocean current didn’t help either as several people missed the target and had to backtrack a little to get around the first turn. I got tangled up with a few others coming around the buoy and was even caught in the rope anchoring it to the bottom leading to a brief moment of panic. Released from this though, we were down-current for the next leg, which flew by. I made the turn for home and swam hard in some open space to finish it off. Swim: 07:58 for 500 meters (1:36 / 100 m)

T1 was pretty smooth. I didn’t get stuck in my wetsuit or do anything too stupid despite not having practiced at all this year. It wasn’t incredibly fast (ranked 45^th), but it was efficient enough. T1: 2:10

The bike course is one we ride all the time. Most of it happens to be the Leading Edge time trial course, so I’m even used to pushing hard on it. I managed to take in a little bit of food near the beginning before climbing up Spanish Banks and then just fought to stay close to the red line for as much of the ride as I could. I had a few people to work off of and leap-frogged with a few others in the sprint as we blew by the racers going at a far more sensible pace in the ½ IM. Most importantly, I felt that I had to lay myself out there on the bike course because I didn’t expect much from my run, and in that effort, I was successful. Ride: 44:55 for 26 km (35.4 km/hr)

T2 was fantastic. I had gone past Dominic from Leading Edge on the road in to transition, but then he passed me back as I was trying to get out of my shoes while still on the bike (apparently, he has practiced that part this year – he made it look far too easy). Once off the bike though, I got through transition really quickly. Just threw my bike on the rack, slipped into the shoes, and played with my visor while I was already running out. My transition time was tied for the fourth best in the field. T2: 0:32

Starting the run was painful. It is obvious to me now that practicing transitions on a weekly basis with LE in years past was a really good idea. I spent the first 2 km of the run sluggish and suffering as I watched half a dozen guys (and one woman) run by me. Once I hit the 2 km mark though, I started to feel a little better. Still didn’t have a lot left in the legs, but was able to fight through and keep turning them over. I managed to run a solid negative split and hold off most of the charge of people coming from behind. Run: 22:35 for 5 km (4:31 / km)

Final result was 1:18:09 against my goal time of 1:20:00. I placed 29^th out of 233 overall and 11^th out of 60 in my age group. Best of all, I only got chicked by two women, and since they were Suzanne and Stephanie, I knew it was inevitable. I’m pretty proud to have held off the rest of the women's field!

I learned from this race that I really should try to get out to a few run practices and push myself into more suffering each week if I want to be prepared for the race at the end of this month. It’s probably too late now, but I’ll get out to a couple anyway. More than anything though, the race was a huge reminder of what I’ve missed out on this year by going back to school. There was a huge turnout by Leading Edge both racing and cheering and it felt amazing to be a part of it. I can’t wait to get through October this year and be able to come back to that group of people that have been such a huge part of our lives for the last six years.

A window into my head

So I've started many posts (in my head) but then have an epic fail getting to a keyboard and getting them on to the interwebs. To summarize what's been on my mind since I got mud in my tutu I thought I'd put it out in list form.

1. Peanut butter in oatmeal is awesome. Not a lot just about a teaspoon. Alison told me to try nutella. Which I did. But I perfer peanut butter.

2. Laziness has been the source of my new oatmeal obsession. For lunch. It's easy to take to work.

3. I'm getting jealous of other people's meals at work.

4. I tried crit racing and had my ass handed to me. But to be fair I was the smallest (all I could see was spandex clad butts and seat posts) and the only girl. And I wasn't aggressive enough in the turns. I know better now and next time will hang on a little longer. I'm also planning to start doing the Tuesday nighters where there is a race for girls like me.

5. I have gotten stronger on my bike in the last month. Biking almost every day (except Sundays and the 2 or 3 days where I haven't been working at the office) has been awesome. Especially with a big hill in between here and there. Without workouts I'm putting in 150k a week. Add in Tuesday and Thursday night workouts and Saturday rides and that's another 150+. Not too shabby! And toughing it out with the boys on Thursday will only make me stronger.

6. I haven't been running.

7. Fastlane Swim and Social Club Summer Session starts on Wednesday. I'm stoked. LE (we've dropped the TC) has been at Kits pool a few times on Sundays and it's been incredible. With less than 40 people in a giant 137.5m pool it's a slice of paradise. I'm also looking forward to Wednesdays at Viva and Fridays at Cafe Zen. Because it's all about the social and the eating after a tough swim. I swim for bacon.

8. I cycle for pie.

9. Brian's not going to be impressed with this one but I have a confession: I do know where the peanut butter has been going. My treat after my hard rides on Tuesday and Thursday is peanut butter on a rice cake. With milk chocolate chips. (Which reminds me: honey, we need chocolate chips).

Flaming Tutus

The Spartan Race series FINALLY came to Vancouver. And it was awesome. I joined Frik and Frak (aka Vanity Spice and Kiwi Spice) to run as an unofficial team. We had signed up separately but ran together. In costume. Tutus. Pink tutus. And acted a bit like princesses the entire way. From "graceful" leaps across the fire to having someone carry your tutu while you crawl through the mud (for the record that wasn't me - that was Kiwi Spice. Vanity Spice covered her tutu with a clear plastic garbage bag. I dove in, tutu and all.).
 

And the forth member of our tutu'd elegance: Miss Thang. Brian didn't wear a tutu. He just cheered and snapped photos. And refused to hug me after when I was all dirty. Because he's a dirt-a-phobe.