Dr. Jenn's CouplesTherapy, Not Just a Time-Suck

This was Season 1's cast....wait, is that "Guard & Protect" Casey and Vienna from The Bachelor? Hot Dang, I gotta HULU that season!

Does anyone else have voyeuristic tendencies like me and watch Couples Therapy on VH-1 with Dr. Jenn?  Its similar to Dr. Drew's Rehab/Celebrity Rehab, but Dr. Jenn doesn't have that pouty red face like Dr. Drew.  I so hate him but I'm riveted to watch the train wrecks he counsels trying to get clean.  

I have a love-hate relationship with reality TV.  I am well aware that much of it is contrived, and not really "real" but then again, all the interviews I've heard with Lauren Conrad, Kim Kardashian, and the contestants from Bachelor and Survivor say the producers may give them scenarios, and direct them in how its to play out, but the reactions and words come from the "reality TV stars" themselves.  I still don't count these fools as "stars", but whatever.

Couples Therapy is marriage counseling for semi-famous people, and the 2nd season just started.  Dr. Jenn Berman is a therapist I started listening to on Cosmo Radio on XM radio each night for radio therapy for any ailment~ sex, drugs, dying, abuse, etc.  I've listened to her for years.  

Now I get to put a face with the voice and see her on VH-1 each week.  I watch this show and Dr. Drew's show to see how people deal with their lives, whether its drugs, alcohol, anorexia, or marital issues like infidelity, emotional detachment, or verbal abuse.  Almost none of these things have ever been my problems, but I am a people-person, I see and get to know new people every day in my job, and I love to find out more about what makes people tick. Plus I might learn out NOT to act when a weird situation presents itself.

Couples Therapy is particularly interesting to me right now.  I watch the couples interact as I always do around married folk.  I'm in awe of the science experiment of marriage.  How Does It Work?  I curiously watch married people talk to each other and how they fight.  How their tempers flare, and how they play victim or aggressor.  I remember my marriage and how it fell apart, and I compare my actions to those of married people I see everywhere.

I watch couples all the time in my daily life.  At work I see who is the one making the decisions, who is the concerned one, who is passive-aggressive.  Anywhere I'm standing around I watch how people treat each other.  Does the husband care for his wife and get her a pen when she needs it or just point in the direction of the pen holder?  Does she snap at him?  Do they laugh? Do they hold hands, or not touch at all?

Nik and Shayne

On the show, there are clearly problems already that brought them to Dr. Jenn.  One couple is Shayne Lamas and Nik Richie.  Shayne is Lorenzo Lamas' daughter and "won" the Bachelor in the 12th season and Nik created The Dirty, a tabloid website.  She's gorgeous and he's not much to look at but has a sexy voice and seems smooth.  They got married in Vegas 8 hours after having met and have been together for long enough to now have a baby.  She hates that he writes dirty things on his website, and he hates that she runs to the mall when she's mad and spends all his money.  


I like this couple.  They seem like they really love each other, but they barely every look directly AT each other.  I remember being so resentful most of the time I didn't want to look directly at my ex-husband, which was hard because we signed to communicate. But that caused me to just not want to communicate.  A bad marriage is full of avoiding.  Would you ever conduct any other relationship successfully without talking face-to-face?

Shayne and Nik are more real, even as they are "celebrities" (not really for any skill they have, just for throwing themselves into the public eye), and they seem to actually have something that could be fixed.  

Then Dr. Jenn jumped the shark a bit by allowing into the house Courtney Stodden and Doug Hutchison, the couple who's been in the news because she's only 17 (and acts every bit of those 17 ridiculous years) and he's in his 50's and they "fell in love" and got married, with her redneck (no doubt) parents' consent.  

This is her serious face, usually she look like she's on X.

He was a serious actor (in the Green Mile and other good movies) but has lost everything to be with this adolescent tramp.  She acts like this is all fun and games and just another way to get her overly made-up face, fake hair extensions, and underfed tiny body (which she shows off liberally) on more TV.  These two have no chance.  She flaunts her body in public wearing stripper heals and butt-baring shorts, and he follows her around trying to stave off the oglers and would-be rapists wanting to get at her.  He wants the marriage to work, but Courtney can't even understand what marriage means, she's so clueless.  Get these jack-wagons off the show Dr. Jenn, they are ruining your credibility as a therapist.

There's several other couples on the show, some are alcoholics, or sex-aholics, and some are just jerks, but none are as interesting as the two couples above.

Anyway, back to MY reality.  I can watch all the other couples I want on TV or in my own life, but it doesn't really give me confidence in allowing myself to be legally bound to another human being again.  Remarrying terrifies me.  I got a pretty safe thing going on with me, myself, and I (and my girls).  If I want to avoid drama, I just stay home and avoid it.

I know couples who have been through infidelity, and some of those seem to be on the other side and happy again, and others are just co-existing for the kids.  I know couples who work separately, so much so they don't see each other that much.  If they make special time for each other, like meeting for a date as a couple would who are in a Long Distance Relationship (LDR), they can have a spark they visit regularly when they take a break from their busy lives.  

I have parents who don't like each other that much most of the time.  They have both confessed they wished they weren't "stuck" with the other.  This makes me shudder at the thought of my geriatric years in misery.  But then I also know couples who weave seamlessly together their lives, complimenting each other, as in working well together as well as giving each other compliments.  These are the golden couples.  Its rare, and probably not like that all of the time, but these couples make me believe in the possibility of marriage.

My current station in life is to make sure my kids make it through the week and rest up on the weekends.  That's really it.  I do squeeze in a swim, a run, or a ride a few times a week to keep my own sanity, but only if there's time.  My girls' activities take up so much of my time that anything more than the LDR that Sinatra and I currently employ would be difficult to maintain.  Yes, I know people do it.  I know blended families exist.  But how?  With our 5 kids running in opposite directions, and then our exes not being the most cooperative of parents so we could coordinate an "off" weekend for ourselves?  

I have doubts we could make it work right now without injuring our bond. I know that sounds distrustful of what we have.  If anything, I'm distrustful of my own faith in what we have.  He's pretty optimistic about it all.  He and I are in a holding pattern anyway for his court battle with his ex over moving here with the kids.  There isn't a chance he'd be moving here anytime soon.  

My doubts stem from our fear of throwing too much change into the basket at once.  We've both been through a divorce.  We like each other too much to force our togetherness too fast.  Respecting the huge shift in him and his kids' lives if they move here is a huge priority for me.  I don't want to put more strain on their pre-teen and teenage psyches, which have already been tested more than normal with the custody battle.

I have come to recognize I seem to choose the hard way to couplehood.  It may be something inside of me that doesn't think it should be easy, so I don't choose the easy way.  I don't think I've turned away men in my past who would've been easy to love, or easy to live with, but maybe I did.  The men I've been attracted to are always a bit quirky and interesting, and maybe its that I'm drawn to a bit of controversy.  Maybe I'd be a good Reality TV specimen.

No one could call me plain vanilla.  I may have a mundane life of going to work, dealing with the kids, feeding the dogs, and trying to get more than 6 hours of sleep each night, but I try to spice up my life with adventures and new experiences.  Maybe I'm drawn to Reality TV shows because they are as crazy as I'd like to be, even for a day.  

YOLO! Ya Only Live Once

Am I the track, or the coaster? 

YOLO. A new teenager term I learned from my almost-14 year old Lil Lady, last night. She says its from a Drake song and ALL the kids say it. She says she says it to herself when she is afraid of something but wants to do it anyway.

I'm not sure of my feelings on this philosophy~ it sounds dangerous. This is teenager-without-full-frontal-cortex-development-speak.  With age, unfortunately I have become more cautious, i.e. I'm basically am a scaredy-cat about a lot of things.

I have my moments like on my Costa trip when I dared a jump off a natural waterfall. Or skiing down the black slopes in Wyoming, Colorado, and Tahoe.  Maybe its in fake-life, on vacation, that I let down my guard and say "Wheeeee!!".  But in real-life, I'm insuring every damn thing I can think of, buying extra toilet paper, and checking the door locks every night multiple times, and worrying myself silly about where I'm falling short with my kids.

Of course a teenager has a YOLO attitude.  What the hell do they know about fear?  What do they know about ANYTHING?  I was 13 and my biggest concern was acne.  Or the name brand on my jeans.  My teenager doesn't even worry about those things.  She wakes up each day and looks into her closet for her outfit for the day, sees a plethora of choices (thanks to Mom) and carefully selects her look.  Make-up (again thanks to Mom) and hair are meticulously placed for maximum cuteness, and down she goes for breakfast.

I'm a teenager....LALALALALALA!!!

She might stress for half a second if she didn't finish a homework page, but no worries, she has an advisory class set aside for homework catching-up time.  If she fails a test, her teachers give her a "make-up test".  What is this thing?  I don't remember getting all kinds of chances for making better grades.  Oh yeah, I studied and listened and got the A on the first try.  No wonder she is totally comfortable with her Bs on her report card.  I say, You could try harder.  She says, Wow look how well I did without even trying that hard!  Ayiyi....

Do I sound bitter? I'm really not.  I remember those days.  Middle school, high school, and college were THE funnest years of my life, if you are looking in the no-stress-and-worry category.  I did those years to the fullest.  They were great.  But I have to say my life today is better.

And by better I mean crazy busy, stressful, rewarding, and full of fun kiddo moments, fun love of my life moments, and fun friends moments.  Like the dog walks I do with one or the other of my daughters (if I'm lucky both, and they talk, not fight) where we cover their day's activities or upcoming events.  Or like dinners out with Sinatra where he and I sit like Big People at the bar and order yummy concoctions before gorging ourselves on a decadent meal.  Or when I'm doing my nerd-speak about races and training with my friends over wine.  It really doesn't get better than any of that.

I am making the most of my time here.  The rough stuff I worry about is always there, but I will try to take the YOLO teenager approach and do the scary thing anyway.

Crazy Little Thing Called Tri

I've been so caught up in school starting and getting my meager training in and reading OTHER people's blogs about how much training they are doing, I haven't posted in a while.

I love reading athlete blogs.  I have one I read that the girl did the Augusta 70.3 yesterday, and I'm eagerly awaiting her report.  I read another of a friend I've met in my running community about her badass splits on mere training runs, let alone winning or placing in all of the 5ks and 10ks she does.  Another blog is about a lady's adventures while going through her divorce and she swims in the Pacific and hikes Northwestern California's peaks. Fascinating.

So I better get back to reporting on my own athletic endeavors.  This past weekend qualifies.

Waaayyy back in June I was convinced by my two best tri girlfriends, K and K, to sign up for a Half-Iron close by in Kerrville, TX.  My biggest races have been olympic, also called quarter tris, and that was mostly just this year.  My intention was to train and work up to a half-iron, or 70.3, triathlon by next year.

I've been doing sprint level tris for 5 years so this year I'd decided to only sign up for olympic level ones.  Sprint are usually a 500m swim,14-15mile bike, and a 5k run.  The olympic races are usually 1500-1600m swims, 24-28mile bike, and a 10k run.  Almost twice as much.

Last May, I reported here that I did my second olympic tri here in Austin and wasn't thrilled about my swim but otherwise was happy I'd gotten through another big race.  Swim lessons with a tri coach in June gave me confidence to sign up for the Half with K and K.  Now I said it was a Half, but I wasn't signed up to do the whole 70.3, mind you, only the swim leg.  I had gotten better and more comfortable and extended my lessons into July and now swimming is my favorite of the 3 sports.  Shhh, don't tell my bike.

So I volunteered (not really, I had to pay for this) to start off our team 70.3 with the swim portion.  One point two miles in the Brazos River.  I've come to realize all our lakes and rivers around central Texas are pretty gross.  The prettiest I've swam in was Aquarena Springs in San Marcos...a cccold spring with the turtles and fishies and seeing clear to the bottom...but even that had plant life that threatened to rope me.

I kept up my swim class, and did some biking and running too.  I did two more olympic tris, and still didn't feel a groove in that distance.  Except for my swims, my times didn't get better, so my frustration grew.

The Ladies of Tri...and Stevie

Truthfully, I had been slacking way off on the biking and running.  I can ride any day of the week, any distance you throw at me, and all I've ever done was one, maybe two training rides a week.  Cycling isn't a weak spot for me.  Running...jeez running continues to elude me.  I go out on my own and feel okay but in my races I'm sluggish and internally whiney the whole time.  I'm not often happy with my times and I've lost the ability to capture a "runner's high" which I used to get a lot more. But training for running once or twice a week doesn't seem to help.  So I swam.

During our grand plans for the Kerrville Half Relay Tri weekend we got caught up in the nerd-speak race-talk with our training group, Blue Moose.  A pack of all ages/all abilities, we are just a fun group of friends who get together to train and do runs, rides, and tris.  K and K and I decided since we were going down there, we'd go early and do the sprint tri the day before the relay.  Why not? We're badasses, right?  Also it gave me a reason to throw in a ride or run or two while I practiced to swim my one point two miler.

As this past week progressed, the forecasts of rain became more and more dramatic.  90% rain was predicted for Saturday, the day of our sprint. 20% chance on Sunday morning, when I'd do my half-iron swim. I had a million things to do with the kids, as usual, and the idea of trekking 2 hours into a rainstorm, only to have the race cancelled wasn't appealing.  I was getting in a foul mood about the whole weekend.  But the hotel was reserved, the entry fees were nonrefundable and already spent.  I get reimbursed from my BEEF team but not if I don't do the race.  The chance was slim that Saturday's race would be a go, but one of the K's convinced me Kerrville was wine country, so the weekend would not be a bust.

I took a half day off work Friday, which is always a bonus.  Got home and loaded up my car with everything I'd need for two rainy muddy races.  Picked up K and got some serious girl-time talking done on the 2 hour trip down.  You know you'll keep a friend forever when you can talk nonstop about work, kids, men, weight, working out, racing, and wine in the span of 2 hours.  The other K was driving down after work but we kept tabs on her via GPS so we would know when she got in.  The rain began lazily as we pulled into the hotel lot.

Once we all three were there, we got our packets from the on-site registration pick-up and realized we had to rack our bikes before dinner.  It was raining more now.  The bike racking was literally next door to our hotel so we walked our babies over there and left them in the cold unforgiving rain.  We paid some cashola for those babies, so to leave them outdoors uncovered in a deluge of rain is NOT okay with us.  Normally we house them in our living rooms at home for gosh sakes!

This race set-up was different than any of the others I've done.  The bike racking was T-1, or transition 1, and the running start was at a separate, T-2 which was two miles away.  After consulting some race officials and several maps, we figured out where T-2 was, and dredged over there, in the rain.  Yes we drove but in an unfamiliar town, with low dark clouds and constant rain, I was starting to get irritated again.  We had moisture-proof bags with our run-out gear to leave in T-2.  By the time we got back to our car, I'd been in and out of the rain fully clothed and not swimming, biking or running for less than an hour, and it was already pissing me off.

Off to Mamacitas for dinner with Blue Moose and a margarita to calm me down.  I never drink before a race but I had convinced myself it wasn't going to happen, so why not?  By the time I finished my rita, I felt guilty and thought, the law of averages, it would stop raining and we would race, and I'd be hungover.  I quickly switched to water.

As we drifted off to bed, earlier than I would've at home (because of the margarita?), the rain was light but continual and the forecast now predicted at least 60% most of Saturday.  The race officials had said short of lightening the race would go on, but me and my Ks were pretty sure we wouldn't ride our babies in the rain and risk life and limb on slick unfamiliar roads.

Saturday at 6AM we suited up and poked our heads out to see light drizzle.  We know the diehard community of triathletes would smirk at such wetness and persevere.  We are just competitive enough to join that school of thought.  We took the remaining gear over to T-1 and were happy it wasn't cooler since we were starting out wet as it was.  Body-marking done and we had time to make another bathroom break back at the room before putting on our wetsuits.  Well, I did.  The other two were brave enough to go in without.  The water was 75 degrees which is relatively warm but wetsuit-legal.  I figure why not use the sprint to test out my wetsuit which I fully planned to use the next day for the must longer 2K.  I swim at the pool in 82 degrees, and I think that's cool for me.  The temperature outside was about 70 so getting in the water wasn't a shock and off we went.

500 meters is a really short distance for a race. If you can freestyle, like me, you're done in 8-11 minutes.  Even with all my training, I was on the 11 minute side of that.  Too many turns and since I'm not out front I'd get caught up in the traffic and then you are changing direction to avoid flying feet and arms.  If you can't freestyle, like one of the Ks, you are still done in 15.  Easy peasy.  Up the hill (seriously, a hill up to transistion? Thanks!) and on the bike.  I had to stop and let the "strippers" take off my wetsuit.  Literally 4-5 people stand there outside the water and turn you around, unzip you, force you to sit and pull the suit off you lickedly split.

I took off on my bike breathing hard (from that damn hill) and soaking wet.  No need to dry off since it was still spitting slightly.  It could've been worse, the rain was barely noticeable as we took off.  Fast swimmer K was right behind me.  The course was loopy and lots of in-town turns and repeat loops but otherwise I made it through the 15 miles in about 48 minutes.  Apparently many people (without computers on their bikes telling them the mileage) were confused and turned toward the bike finish before they'd done the 2nd outer loop.  Inexperienced riders should invest in a $20 bike computer, so they don't accept awards when they only rode 8 miles instead of 15 (this happened in the sprint relay my training mates did- MY friends did it correctly).

Into T-2, threw on my running shoes and a visor and saw one of the Ks ready to go too.  The other K was just coming in, she made up some serious time from her slow swim on a super fast bike.  I took off with K and the other K came up and passed us both, as she usually does.  She's a runner, hence her doing our run-leg of the relay the next day.  Me and K started out slow and I told her to go ahead if she needed to.  She doesn't like to leave me but she's slightly faster than me so I feel I'm holding her back.  Through the trails and back she was a bit ahead of me, but within sight.  The other K was way ahead and we saw her only after the turnaround.  Her overall time beat us both, I was the slowest of us three, thanks to my run.  But at 1:42 I was pretty happy, since my past sprint tris have all been 1:45 or less.

I had an epiphany after that finish.  I like sprint tris.  I feel good after I'm done and during I don't dread the next leg coming.  In my age group I'm not the slowest.  Sprints are typically what beginners start with so the chances of me placing better are higher.  I know that sounds silly but there are professionals who excel at sprints and continue to do them while they rack up more trophies.  Same with 5ks.  I've placed as high as 7th in a sprint in my age group, women 40-44.  Its usually a fairly large division since triathlon is a popular sport among the just-divorced or bored-with-my-life crowd.  Saturday I placed 9th in my division. Whoo-hoo!

I did all those olympics earlier this season because they were the "next step".  On my way...to what?  Ironman?  I have already decided after watching and reading about friends who are training for Ironman that I don't want to devote that much of my life to triathlon.  As in, I don't want to ruin it.  Its still fun.  Or it was when I was doing sprints.  The olympic races are daunting for me.  Faster, more authentic athletes go for the olympic races.  They are training for half-irons and irons.  Olympics are their stepping stones.  I felt fat and slow at my last few.  At the sprint, I felt great, drizzle and all. I think I've (re)found my niche.

K, Me, and K- Team KiCK It

Next up:  I must work on running more efficiently just as I did the swimming.  I have seen the results in my swimming since my classes started.  I have a friend who is willing to give me a running plan and work with me at the track.  I'm all for that.  I just want to feel better running, like I wanted to feel better swimming.  I got the swimming down and even learned to be faster.  On Sunday, I swam my relay leg for my team.  I felt good, I used my techniques, I kept sighting well, I stayed out of the fray as much as I could but followed buoy to buoy until I finished.  Toward the end I felt good, and I felt like I hadn't swam 1.2 miles.  So much better than I'd felt in previous shorter 1600 meter open water swims.   My friend says he can get me there with running.  Cool beans.

Back to Saturday after our amazing sprint (my training mates relayed it and got FIRST PLACE in spite of those 1-looper bike dummies) my friends and I checked out one of the local wineries.  You throw a rock around that area and you're gonna hit a winery.  This one came highly recommended by my training mates.  They took us there and we did a tasting.  All the while talking our nerdy race talk.  We've been training together for over a year now so there's plenty of material.  The wine loosened us up and we talked for hours.

A few grapes at The Chisholm Trail Winery

This adult-time is precious and so necessary for me to grow as an athlete and as a 40+ adult.  I missed Sinatra immensely because I know he would've loved every minute of it, but he was home being a dad to his kids.  It wasn't his time to nurture his me-time.  He fits in with this crowd perfectly and we all have such good times.  We will have other weekends and he will be there.  These are my friends for life and the fact that they are my friends have enriched my life just as much as triathlon has over these last 6 years.  There's more to learn in my training, in my races, and in my friendships.  Cool beans, and pass the wine.