New gym swim swim swim

• 1 • Swim

After spending the summer swimming in an immaculately gorgeous outdoor pool, I had trouble going back to my old gym, which wasn’t always… clean.


So I joined Greg’s gym, which is a further drive, but spotless. I mean, spotless. It’s the ultimate luxury. From the quiet and peaceful pool to the gorgeous tiling and constantly cleaned showers. I think about the grapefruit scented bath products on non-gym days. They’re that good. (Yes, they sell them, but I think bringing them home would destroy the specialness of it.)

I also signed up for more swim lessons, because I still want to swim a sprint triathlon distance without having to backstroke (zig-zag) most of the course. Technique, technique, technique… that’s what everyone says about swimming.

I love the swim instructor / personal trainer I’m working with. (To be clear, I loved my last one, also.) She’s incredible at breaking down the movements, and showing me outside the water exactly how the body should rotate. She watches so carefully every time I do the exercise and narrows in on exactly what I should focus on each time I push off. One thing she mentioned was that in order to really build muscle memory, you need to practice less than 72 hours after your last session, so we’re meeting twice a week for the next three weeks and then I’m trying to swim once on my own as well.

How am I going to do that and crash-train for the Chilly Half Marathon?

Um, it’s essential cross-training. Totally part of the plan. I GOT THIS.

Anyway, I had a great swim at the pool today. One of the most relaxing things about working with a trainer at the pool on technique is how intently you have to focus. I had to really listen to exactly what I had done well or not so well, and what motions I was going to attempt to correct the next time around. Every stroke I was thinking about the placement of my hips, legs, turn of the head, straightening of the arms… there’s no room to worry about anything else in life. For an hour, I can barely remember my own name, let alone my lengthy to-do list or the fact that my kids want to subsist on burritos and vegan pizza.

It’s a little like meditation in the sense that your mind is a bit clear for a while.

Tomorrow is a run day, and Friday is another long run!

Biking errands

• 0 • Bike

I had a busy morning between 9 and 12: two school drop offs, making soup and homemade bread, last minute birthday errands for Will’s birthday tomorrow, and off to get blue curacao for our “red, white and blue” drinks theme for tonight’s debate watching. (Obviously.)

I managed to get it done AND fit in a bike ride because I rode my bike to pick up the blue curacao.

It felt a little weird to ride my bike to a store, put a bottle of liquor in my backpack, and bike home… but in a good “I’m outdoors and not stuck in traffic” kind of way.

In the past few weeks, I’ve also ridden my bike to the library and the farmer’s market.

I like using Google Maps to find good ways to bike somewhere, which is usually a different route than I would take driving.  (I’m willing to add mileage to avoid busy roads.)

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I’m still terrified of busy intersections and will sometimes get off my bike and walk it across a crosswalk rather than merge into traffic and take a left turn.

But it’s fun.

WAY more fun than being in the car.

 

 

 

 

Tri For a Cure Complete!

• 7 • Race Recaps, Triathlon

I swam.

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I biked.

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I ran.

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It rained. (A lot.)

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I smiled. (A lot.)

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If I had to summarize my triathlon strategy, it would go like this:

Swim: Watch where you’re going!

Bike: Hammer down!

Run: Just don’t stop.

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As expected, I was pretty slow on the swim. (The point was to make it, and I did!) What was unexpected was that I’m comparatively a better cyclist than I am a runner! My bike time was 181 overall, and my run time was 318 overall.

I’m happy with every single part of the race. I wanted to become a swimmer and a road biker, and I did. Moreover, I absolutely LOVE biking. I love it. It’s amazing, and without this race as incentive, I’m not sure when I would have gotten out there.

More importantly…

I wanted to raise money to help fund cancer research and prevention, and we did.

As I was leaving the transition area to go out on the run, a man was standing to the side, clapping for every runner, and saying “Thank you, you helped save my mom.”

When I looped back on the run, 32 minutes later, the same man was still standing there, thanking every single athlete heading out on the run, telling them they helped save his mom.

I wonder how long he stood there.

His mom is alive, but he hasn’t forgotten.

I thought a lot about the people I know who were lost to cancer on that run. It was a very heart-felt run. During the last half mile, I told myself I was going to pick it up for Connie. And then Erica. And Cousin Jackie. Let’s pretend the names stop there. But they don’t. There are too many.

I saw Will and Andrew with Greg and his parents on the run course, and I ran over to give them a hug. I was so emotional at the time that the photos look like I’m about to cry, even though I remember seeing them there as one of the happiest moments in the race.

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I had a ton of family come see me finish; I got to hug my Dad right before walking down to the swim, and my niece has evidently been playing “Aunt Kelly” and pretending to swim, bike and run. I have a father-in-law to whom I can toss a wetsuit with no explanation, a mother-in-law who always has an umbrella, and a sister-in-law who will trudge around a race course carrying a sleeping toddler through a downpour. Words can’t begin to cover how supportive Greg has been of the idea, the process, the training, the event… I’m a lucky woman.

I am so proud and touched to have participated in Tri For a Cure. The women who raced raised over 1.6 million dollars for the Maine Cancer Foundation. There were survivors who had never been active before cancer, who have now become triathletes. There were generational relay teams consisting of three generations; my mother saw two team-mates practically carry their runner across the finish line.

It’s an incredibly powerful event, filled with remembrance, hope and strength.

Thank you to everyone who supported me on this journey; I am so grateful to have been part of it.

 

Tri For A Cure is Tomorrow!

• 2 • Triathlon

Tri for a Cure is tomorrow!

I have had a lot of fun becoming a swimmer and a cycler… And I’ve also been incredibly moved by how much people will reach out and help.

From my neighbor who took me out on my bike for the first time to every person who donated and sent me messages of support, it’s amazing the community that participated in getting me to that start line tomorrow.

So many friends came to my Tri For a Cure CycleBar fundraiser or donated.

I had people help me research bikes, loan me gear, offer to loan me gear, and share race strategies.

I had an amazing swim instructor patiently break down the front crawl for me, week after week, until I could swim.

Current events have not been uplifting. Seeing the village that emerged when I set out on this challenge is a refreshing reminder or how wonderful people are.

Tomorrow, I Tri for my Aunt Connie who we lost to cancer. I also Tri for the members of my family who’ve had cancer who are survivors, and the many acquaintances I’ve lost.

Tri For a Cure has transformed me.

I can only imagine the way it transforms the lives of the survivors who train for it, or the people who benefit from the research it funds.

Grateful to be a part of this wonderful event tomorrow. I’ll let you know how it goes 🙂

Recipe: Cranberry ginger lime refresher (and a Tri update)

• 0 • Triathlon

First, a recipe.

Tri For a Cure is on Sunday, and I woke up Monday with the slightest sore throat. I coughed. Twice.

I then FREAKED OUT. Because there is no way I want to do my first ocean tri, the event I’ve been training 5 months for, with a chest cold.

So I started to self-medicate with all the nutrition tricks under the sun. To an insane degree. And I mean insane in the “mentally unstable” kind of way. But it made me feel more in control, and when you’re “medicating” with whole foods, the side effects aren’t just benign, they’re spectacularly positive and probably just what I need going into race-day.

I won’t regale you with all my insanity (eating sauteed swiss chard for breakfast, drinking turmeric and matcha powder mixed with hot water, etc.) but I will share this delicious and refreshing recipe I came up with for a cranberry refresher. It’s hydrating, packed with antioxidants and polyphenols, and ginger has been used as an anti-inflammatory and purportedly has immune boosting benefits. I don’t know how well these are studied, but since ginger is healthy and delicious and I’m fine with the placebo effect, I tossed it in there for a lovely little zing.

Cranberry Ginger Lime Refresher

Makes one large (16-20 oz) or two small servings.

1/2 cup frozen cranberries

3 frozen strawberries

1/2 cup ice

1 teaspoon fresh ginger root, peeled and diced (more if you love ginger!)

1 lime, peeled and sliced in half

3/4 cup water

Add ingredients to a high speed blender and blend until smooth. Tastes refreshing, but not sweet; replace some of the frozen cranberries with strawberries if tart isn’t your thing! This is not smoothie consistency; it’s much lighter and less creamy.

In other news….

I’ve been having a blast in Maine with family! My parents bought a beautiful vintage O’Day, the sailboat is in great condition with most of its original interior still intact. Went out and had dinner with them on the boat at the mooring while they did some work on it; it’s going to be amazing when they get the sails on! Heck, it’s amazing now. It was so beautiful sitting out in the harbor with the wind in my hair, kids at their other grandparents, relaxing and having dinner as twilight approached.

Tri For a Cure…

Is almost here!

Swim

I can’t WAIT to stop having dreams about the open water swim in the ocean. I know I’ll make it, it’s just a matter of what story I’ll have to tell afterwards. I hope it’ll be one where I’m surprised by how well it went. I’m worried it’ll be another slow zig-zag backstroke nightmare fighting panic for twenty minutes and lucky to make it out of the water without resting on a kayak.

Time will tell.

I just know that it’s all in my head in terms of how well it goes. That’s both good and bad.

If I could exert mental control, I could front crawl the entire thing. I don’t think I have that much control, but the next level will be reigning in the fear of breathlessness enough to actually revert from backstroke back into the front crawl (face down in the water) so I can get some better sighting in without treading water (which is a great way to really panic because of the effort it takes to keep your head up).

I can do it.

But will I?

Bike

…I didn’t buy the Craigslist bike. I went to a bike shop up in Portland, Maine to get SPD-SL pedals to put on the bike when I tried it, and they told me the bike I was going to look at was probably not the right size frame and I shouldn’t buy a 48 cm Cannondale.

So… I emailed Mike at Landry’s in Natick, MA; he’s the one who fit me on my 48 cm Cervelo. He said I could go either way depending on the bike frame, because at my 5’3″ I’m right in the middle. He was nice enough to email me back at 10:45 at night the day before I was supposed to go see the bike, and then the next morning did some online comparisons between the frame sizes of different manufacturers, and looked at the Craigslist listing, and gave me advice on how the bike should feel and what price he thought would be reasonable. I called Landry’s to thank him, and he wasn’t working. He’d done all that research for me on his day off. So I could buy a Craigslist bike. That he’d get nothing for.

I realize I gave them some business getting my Cervelo fitted and buying accessories… but seriously? That’s way above and beyond. He’s such a nice guy.

Anyway… push come to shove, I got worried about the 48 in Cannondale, and the price of the craigslist bike, and after trying a Trek Emondo in 50 cm that I borrowed from the shop in Maine, am going to look at one from Landry’s in a less expensive gearset than was available up in Maine. I’m back in MA for a couple days to get Will’s cast taken off (he broke his arm, they gave us a waterproof cast, life has been good) and I’m going over to Landry’s this afternoon to see if the Trek they have will work, and if so, get it fitted and possibly ride it on Sunday. If not, I’ll ride my Cervelo – moving my hands to shift isn’t the most efficient, sure, but I’ve put some miles on that bike and she and I are still friends.

Run

Yup, that will happen Sunday.

Last weekend I got to see Greg run the Old Port Shipyard Half Marathon. He did it in 1:28 something, like 20 seconds shy of a PR. We were eating brunch by the time it would have taken me to finish the same race. I love watching him run. He glides. It’s beautiful. I run like a zombie, shuffling forward, continually impressed that I’m even moving forward. Greg runs like an antelope, like “oh, are we running? I like running!”.

I love seeing him run. It makes me want to sign up for fewer races together, because when I run I never get to see him.

That’s what’s going on with me.

There’s still time left to donate to my Tri For a Cure Fundraiser! Together we’ve raised over $2,000 to fight cancer. Thank you 🙂 The messages people have left in support mean the world to me! Can’t really believe how different I am as an athlete than when I started this journey in February 🙂

Donate to fight cancer and support my triathlon journey! http://mainecancer.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=2244

Going to go eat some kale now.