4th of July Fail

I did not see fireworks yesterday on the 4th of July. I heard them outside my home from the neighbors' contraband caches but I didn't bother going outside to see what they were popping. I feel that fireworks are for kids. I enjoy watching my kids watch them, but if I'm not with them, its not something I will watch. I was not with my kids.

Their dad was gone for almost the whole month of June and he's come back and has had them last weekend and yesterday. I can't say no when its been so long since he saw them, and he had friends in town who's daughters have grown up with my girls, so they wanted to see them as well. I also had to work the next day, so a late night out at the park would've been tough. So he got to enjoy the wonder and amazement on their faces as the fireworks flew.

The fail part was my attitude all day. I usually crave alone time when my kids are running in and out of my bedroom when I'm trying to watch my favorite show or they disappear just as I finish cooking dinner and I have to roam the neighborhood to find them. But the house was empty. My girlfriends are out of town. My boyfriend was at home with his kids, busy at their friends' house for the 4th. I was alone.

I should've gotten a good book and read, gone to bed early, colored my hair...something to enjoy the time I'd been gifted. I think with work looming the next morning, the kids having fun-time with Dad, and my Sinatra off partying it up with friends without his girlfriend, my mood grew gloomy.

Why can't I have the family around me? Why am I not helping Sinatra grill burgers or mix the baked beans? Even if my kids are with their dad I should have my boyfriend here. Living here. I don't need him but I NEED him. My partner. Without him I'm single. I am not single in theory so why am I alone? He should be here.

Two years ago when we began this crazy LDR, I would not have guessed we'd still be in love two years later but not living close by each other. I thought back then if it did not work out for us to be living in the same area, we'd go our separate ways. Our kids still have a lot of growing up to do and they've all gotten comfortable in their hometowns. Maybe its wrong to uproot kids at this age. If it wasn't going to happen, we should move on with our lives.

How foolish I was. I did not realize how deeply we all would weave each other into our lives. That I would grow to LOVE his kids and worry about them and care how they were feeling, acting, and growing. That he would become a light in my kids' lives, putting smiles on their faces and laughter in their bodies. How could I have thought if "it didn't work out" we'd leave to live our lives separately? Not a chance in hell that will happen.

Those four people are my family now even if the court system only regards me as a "collateral" in their lives. I spoke to the court's social worker and tried to express my love for them but I felt it fell flat. She hasn't met me in person and over the phone she could not have seen my love for them. I described each one of them realistically, pros and cons, but the cons were normal maternal admissions of faults on all our parts. Even so, I love them with all their flaws.

Two years now it's been. I'm not moving. Hopefully the court will allow them to come here. That is Sinatra's wish, and my kids and I are looking forward to the day they come rolling in town. There is not an alternative. That the courts may restrict where he and the kids can live is not an option I let my brain explore. I just can't.

He assured me on the phone he was so ready to get here, and doing everything he can to get him ready to go. I whined he hasn't gotten the house in realtor-show-ready condition yet, and even though he can't contact a realtor yet, he could be working on it. I boo-hooed the court dates keep getting pushed further out. He tried to sympathize and tell me he felt the same way.

I admit I didn't behave very adult-like. I wasn't very independent on Independence Day. But I got it out of my system, as I often do, and will look forward to the day when my family, all seven of us, are together for all holidays and special occasions. As it should be, and will be.

Learning to Swim All Over Again

My last triathlon swim time was less than stellar. In my age group my light blue cap was one of the last ones out of the water. My good friend is a no-face-in-the-water, doggie-paddle slash breast stroke kind of swimmer and we were in the same age group. She finished the 1500 meters one minute slower than me and she never even put her goggles on. And I'm sure all her conserved energy was the reason her final time was over 14 minutes faster than mine.

The swim was in a lake with buoys outlining our course, and by the first buoy I KNEW I did not have a groove, no flow, no stroke, and I was flailing around but going nowhere. When I saw my time later, I decided I needed help.

I found an adult conditioning swim class offered by the local rec center, $65 for one month of MWF...at 5:45am. Yes I said A.M. I bit the bullet. Its only for a month, right?

June 1st I went into the water in the dark. Whoosh! That's a slap in the face, but I warmed up quickly. My Ironwoman swim coach barked out some drills and I had no idea what they mean. She described them and showed me and off I went. I'm really a model student, doing everything that's asked of me and no stopping to chat or rest much. I only have that hour to give to the workout and I'm using it all.

This is opposed to my loud chatty classmate in the next lane. With his over-sized Ironman tattoo, IronmanBrad bombards our coach with questions about her next race and whines that he "hates" this one or that one. Oh please dude, if you hated a race why did you ask the tattoo artist to enlarge the IM logo to cover your whole calf? I think the race hates you, my friend. I sure am starting to.

I love the improved stroke I am learning. Coach has gently given me pointers and has me racing against myself, watching my pace on my 50s, 100s, and 150s. That's one lap, two, and three laps. I've never worked at swimming like this and it feels so different now. I visualize myself doing it in the open water, which is next on my training plan, and I know my next 1500 meters will be closer to 30 minutes, rather than 50.

The early mornings are a pleasant surprise to me. It only bothers me at that moment I have to leave my bed. After that I am thinking about the cup of coffee I'm about to make and take with me and getting my water bottle and goggles ready, and out the door by 5:30am. Earlier if I want to guarantee to get the lane I like. That hour goes so fast, and by the time I'm ending with my cool-down laps the sun is rising, the sleepy kids who practice after my class are shuffling in, and I feel great.

On my drive home from the pool I see all sorts of folks up walking and running and cycling. All before 7am! Who knew such a busy health-conscious community existed outside my darkened door at such an hour? I'm pleased to join them, and know I've already burned over 400 calories by the time I used to be rolling out of bed.

I think I will sign up for July.

Movin' On Up in the Tri World

That sure is a pretty skyline off Lady Bird Lake

This is not the first time I have swam along side that beautiful city, with the duck and bat poop and a thousand other crazy people, in what used to be called Town Lake. It surely will not be the last. At 8:06am last Monday I stuck my face in that dirty ole Colorado River, in the lake that's now named after LBJ's cute little wife, and swam with all the other 40-44 year old women in the 2012 CapTex Olympic Triathlon.

This was my second olympic length tri. It's a 1500 meter swim in the previously mentioned poopy lake, a 40K bike ride (over 24 miles for the Americans) over 4 loops of downtown Austin streets near the Capitol building, and a 10K (6.2 miles in 2 loops) run on those same streets. There are professional athletes doing this same course like Andy Potts, Hunter Kemper, and Sarah Haskins. These stellar athletes finish much faster than us amateurs and for over $40,000 in prize money. This tri is one of the more expensive ones to enter, without a charity cause that benefits, and placing in it gets you ranked with USAT or something fancy like that. There's also a paratri division, a first-timers division and a spring-distance division. This is a big money tri.

My swim was less than rank-worthy. I have been training in the cleaner Lake Pflugerville and felt great on most of those swims. I even did a 2K swim in the lower end of Lake Austin 3 weeks ago in which I felt pretty darn good, even though it took me 56 minutes to complete the 1.2 mile swim. I wore a wetsuit that time but the water Monday was too warm for it, so I was on my own. I never felt a flow in my stroke but I kept up my freestyle. The course seemed to go on forever and many of the colored-caps in the waves after mine zoomed past me but in 41 minutes I climbed out of the water.

A run through transition to put on my bike gear, and off I went on the bike course. Its a fast course and I love it. Last year I hauled some ass through it and had a rough run after, so this year I thought I'd keep my cadence high and my speed a bit slower to ease the wear on my legs and finish the tri strong. Last year's pace was 17.1 mph. My final pace this time? 17.2mph. Oh well. I just never learned to ride anything but fast.

Swooshed through transition again, changing shoes and throwing on my running visor, and I'm off on the run. Now last year I hated this run. Two loops, 5K each. I didn't know the course well and I wasn't sure how far the first loop was so I felt like it went FOREVER. I walked a lot of it last year. Oh and did I mention it was after 10am and blazing hot? No difference in that this year. Same distance, same 2 loops, and same hellacious heat. But I was prepared. Experience paid off. I planned a 4/1 run. Run 4 minutes, walk 1. I've practiced this over the last months and it has always come in fairly close to longer run/walks or full-out running. So I ran and depended on those one minutes like they were a vacation. I grabbed water at every station and drank a little and poured the rest down my shirt. I ate a GU and had some Gatorade. I watched other people struggling, even vomiting, but I kept golng at my pace. With an 11.26 minute mile I finished the course and my final race time was 3:25, 7 minutes faster than last year.

My new tri standard is the olympic distance. I began my sprint tris 5 years ago and every year I got be more efficient and more competent at them. I even placed in the top 10 in my age group in a few of the smaller ones. Its time to move on up to the next level. I have two more olympic tris planned. Bring it.

Training Without Borders

As I swam my 1000 meters today in the lake I train , I remembered where I was one year ago today. Not exactly what I was doing but where I "was".

I might've been doing a training swim last year at this time right before Memorial Day; I was training for the same triathlon I'm doing this Memorial Day. Last year I did it only 3 weeks after being diagnosed with breast cancer and having my first lumpectomy. I hit that anniversary a few weeks ago.

In a few weeks in June I will pass the anniversary of th second lumpectomy and the start of radiation. I did three more triathlons in June, July, and August last year. It seems like the cancer happened a lot longer than one year ago. I swam strong tonight and I have run and biked strong this week and these past months. I have had a great training year.

Not that all this training will shave hours off my finish-times, it won't. I'm a 42 year old weekend warrior, I won't be carrying home any hardware that every other finisher doesn't also have. The damn 40-44 year old women's age group is always huge. And there are ladies in MUCH better shape than me getting the top spots. That's fine. There might be one good thing about turning 45...or 50...smaller age groups.

So once I was done with radiation last August I got my energy back within a few weeks and I started training. We had an easy winter so I never stopped riding and running.

My social world revolves around mostly working out and races. I love that about my friends.

DONE~ two half-marathons, a 10-miler (I know I blogged that it sucked but it was still running 10 fucking miles!),and biking the Pedal Thru the Pines 55 miler, the Rosedale 45 miler and several other long training rides, including the two-day MS150 last month. All since just this past December. I even did a 5-miler with my Sinatra.

My basic training run went from 2-3 miles to 4-6. I signed up for two Olympic tris and am contemplating a half-iron, either relaying with my team or doing it outright myself. I decided the Sprint tri and the 5Ks were not necessary even though as I get better I could maybe place in my age group at the smaller races. Its not about winning. Its about the challenge.

If I dare compare myself to the great Lance Armstrong....I've gotten better since the cancer. As he said, "I hope it sends out a fantastic message to all survivors around the world. We can return to what we were before – and even better.” In Paris after taking his first Tour title in 1999

Scattered thoughts from an Overused 40+ Year-Old Mind

In June I will be 42 freakin' years old. I'm okay with the number. My life at 42 is no one else's but my own. Not dependent on anyone and I handle my own shit. Can every 42 year old say that?

I have 2 kids and 2 dogs and 2 bikes, a house, a car, and a yard of my own. I'm a single parent. If the grass grows, I mow it. Well, sometimes I pay the teenager across the street when he wants to make a quick 20. When the house needs cleaned, I clean it. Ok, I make my kids do some of it, but they aren't that great at it. When I'm having a bad day I wallow in it. Alright, I call a meeting of my BFFs and we meet for margaritas or wine. Its better than therapy.

Clearly I am an independent woman, but am not shy about asking for help.

I have a phone with a calendar on it which Google links to a calendar on my laptop or any computer I'm near. I love calendars. I have things scheduled already out to August at this point. I like to know waaaay ahead when something's coming so I can stick in my calendar. It gives me peace of mind to add an appointment. Then I know I have a chance of not forgetting it. I thrive on checking today's date and making sure I've got my ducks in a row for the day. Wow, that sounds a bit sick.

I make lists. On envelopes or post-its or scrap paper. Bills to pay, things to buy, places to be, people to call. Every week a new list. I add the status on my 401K and my mortgage balance and my weight. I throw everything on there. It soothes me. Out of my head and on to paper. Then I really get jazzed when I can cross off stuff...or maybe check it, whatever my mood demands.

I try to stay active and by doing that, I schedule every single minute down to the second with "stuff". Why? When do I rest? 42 ain't no spring chicken! Metabolism is slowing, brain function is getting muddled, skin is drooping, hair is graying. But I'm told I don't look 40+. No matter I'm told that by 75+ year olds, hey, I'll take it anyway. Because my 42 year old brain can't click as quickly as it once did, my calendar alerts keep me from forgetting something important and let someone down. I'm a pleaser and a perfectionist. Not always a good combo. I am not the most organized person either. It looks unorganized to the untrained eye, but my mess is mine and I know where everything is. Or at least what pile its in. Here is a picture of my actual workspace at work...sticky-notes, piles and all:

I know it looks like a scene from the movie A Beautiful Mind but I know where any manufacturer rep's phone number or insurance account number are hanging in the mess. It would make sense to put those stickies on one single computer-typed page. I look at my mess and am sometimes disgusted. I'm sure my office isn't professional-looking. I don't do well with change so in the 12 years I've hibernated in this office daily, this is what I get. The mess isn't going anywhere. It is all I can do to get from one day to the next without forgetting to put on a shirt each morning, so if I'm arriving at work fully dressed, getting my kids and the dogs fed, and moving my ass enough that I don't weigh 200 lbs, I figure I'm doing alright.

Ten Miles, 20 Bands, and 1 Sore Old Body

That is me, on the far left in the Beef shirt, smiling. Its a fuzzy picture which is good, because it camouflages the pain behind that smile. Not one certain place on my body in pain, pretty much the whole body. It was a ten-mile course, spattered with rock-n-roll bands all along the way. Sound cool on paper. It was cool. Except I only got to listen to each band for a few seconds...because I was RUNNING! Duh.

Many of Austin races have bands. I remembered that after we got started. Its kind of a thing here in the "Live Music Capital of the World". We're not bragging...much.

But the Austin 10/20 promised 20 bands during the ten miles and I thought what a cool way to distract me from the ten miles my body will be trying to run. I wondered as I watched those bands how many of them hated to get up that morning to go play in the muggy weather over thousands of sweaty runners trotting by not even able to stop and bang their heads. None of them looked much like "morning" people.

It was a mass start but we were organized into zones according to our running abilities so we milled through the corrals until we reached the start and off we went. I was running with two of my Beef team members who ran my same pace. One was soley a runner so she was probably conditioned to run faster but mentioned this was just a "fun run" for her, aka social-run-I'm-not-trying-to-win. The other is training for the freaking Ironman next month and said after this 10 miles her training plan says she needs to run another 10. Oh yeah, and she rode 74 miles on her bike the day before. She's a machine.

Me? I'm the triathlete who gets her workouts in while her kids are in piano or after dark when everyone's homework is done if I'm lucky. There are weeks I haven't been able to squeeze in more than one hour for a workout. Usually on the weekends I make up for it and try the whole Weekend Warrior thing with long rides or runs, but many times only one day of the weekend I'm able to fit something in. Its frustrating to want to do more but just not have enough hours in the day to do it.

Get up early you say? Hmmm, so I work until 5 every day. I drive home in rush hour traffic arriving by 5:40pm on a good day, and usually am out the door again to the kids' church, piano, volleyball or cheer functions by 6 or 6:30. Home by 7:30 or later depending on the night. Kids get dinner and shower and the dogs need a petting or even a walk if they're lucky and now its 9pm. Kids go to bed (in theory) at 9:30 and 10pm. Now if my teenager ACTUALLY goes to bed at 10pm, which usually bleeds over to 10:15 or 10:20, I get to finally veg in front of the TV to catch up on my shows. I try to turn off the TV by 11pm so I can read before I go to sleep. I love to read but never have a quiet moment except for 11pm or later. Fall asleep reading by 11:30pm.

Do you see me getting up at 5am the next morning? Uh, no. I do get up at 6:30am to start the whole thing over again, so to get an early morning workout in means 5am, and 5am means Mommy gets no sleep, and that means DANGER. I need my 7 hours of sleep or it gets ugly.

I digress. Our plan on the 10 miler was to run at least the first 5k without stopping and reassess whether to run/walk it. In the past on the two half-marathons, I ran/walked one and ran the whole second one and my time on the second was only like 8 minutes better. But somehow run/walking seems wussy. My running is slow enough that some duck-walkers pass me so really to slow down more is embarrassing.

We got to the 5K mark and the other girls were like "I feel good, wanna keep going?" so of course I said "YUP" even though my legs were not so happy at that point. After a 5K! UGH. I should be leaping past that 5K sign with all the running I've done in the past year. My last few weeks have been short sub-4 mile runs and not fast at all. Basically I've been slacking, and it showed.

We ran more and I think we got to the 5 mile marker and I finally said I wanted to walk a minute. It was right on the hour mark, so we try to time it as a four minute run, 1 minute walk so the math is easy on our watches. Sometimes we talk too much and don't pay attention and either walk too long or run too long...but 4/1 is easiest to maintain.

The sun never came out but the clouds were gray and low and holding the heat and humidity down right on us. I was smelly and sweaty and it was only half-way over. Austin is not a flat town and so up and down we went. I slowed at every water stop to hydrate and my legs, knees, hips continued to bark. The other two were slightly ahead of me which was fine because I was in a "leave me and my pain alone" mood and hung back on purpose. They would slow on the walks to let me catch up and we did have some nice girl-talk. I barely noticed the bands to tell you the truth.

We came back around the 9 mile marker and there was our Beef team volunteers cheering and making noise and taking pictures...hence the smiley pic above. It did give me a boost to get running and I saw the band we saw first as we left the starting gate. Whoo-hoo we are almost to the end and its only be an hour and 45 mintues! Oops wait, we still have a mile to go. We veer off from the finish line to loop around some of the stores in the Domain and I'm really starting to ache. But there were big crowds and our Beef team members were screaming for us to keep going so I put my head down and ran.

I always find a surge of energy to sling-shot me into the finish line of my races...all the spectators lined up yelling always helps me out. There we went all three of us across the Finish at 2:06. I didn't feel like I had a great run but my time wasn't horrible. I was #508 out of 628 women in my age group (40-44). That's a huge age group and I definitely wasn't a shining star in it, but there were 120 women of my age who sucked worse (not you K, your time was the same as mine, they just listed you a second slower so you were under me- totally not fair since you waited for me half the run!). There were 6,000+ men and women who finished and I was one of them, so I'll take it.

My training can be better. It will be better. I have an Olympic triathlon coming up in a month and I don't want my run to ruin it. I will squeeze an hour even if I'm tired, and even if the girls are busy, so I have something to call my own. I've already signed up for my next 10K (only 6.2 miles) and there's no excuse not to do better with 2 weeks to get ready.

And onward to the next over-sized stupidly heavy medal, which validates me whether I had a good run or not, and which I love so much.

Impatience is Thy Enemy

I'm not the best at waiting. In fact, I'm pretty awful at it. I don't enjoy waiting in lines or sitting in waiting rooms past my appointment time. I make lists and enjoy nothing more than to cross off duties as I get them done. I get my list to be fully crossed off as soon as possible. If I make a list, its because I'm going to get the things on it done.

Watching others take their time makes me crazy. I realize there are folks who don't adhere to the same timeline I do, but when I am made to watch them lolly-gaggle along, I have to concentrate on not blowing steam out my ears. My kids are famous for this. I'm a multi-tasker so I can easily get three or four tasks done in one pass, like walking through the living room and throwing away a soda can, picking up dirty socks and grabbing the remote that belongs to the upstairs TV. Its all my kids can do to remember to turn off the TV when they leave the room. One button. Never mind hanging up their jacket and tossing their trash from snacktime. Too many steps gets them confused. One-track minds.

My hurry-up-and-go habits aren't necessarily good for me but in my job and my homelife they are necessary so everything gets done. Who else will do it? I've been divorced for almost 5 years and have grown pretty damn independent. Or controlling, whatever you want to call it. I do the work of 2 or more people depending on the day. When I was married it was this way anyway (hence the divorce) but now I really have to step up or the world will come to an end.

In my job, I constantly have to keep things flowing and organized because my assistant just doesn't have the attention to detail that I do. If I don't want to have to re-do it, I'll just do it myself in the first place. I file the insurance claims, I make the chart notes, I fill out repair and order forms. These are all jobs she could do, but if they are done wrong, delays and screw-ups result. I know, she will never learn if I don't let her try...uh, I've let her try, and then I just do it myself...correctly. IF I have cleaned out waste baskets at the end of the day, I'm pretty lucky I didn't have to do that myself.

At home I do my best to give chores and responsibilities to the children. Making their own beds and cleaning their rooms are a must. The dishes are hard to screw up, so unloading and loading are their jobs. Laundry? They can separate and fold but the washing cycle is mostly up to me. Don't want to have my whites turn pink or brown from one rogue sock. Only I check the pockets so I don't have a blow-out in the dryer of some note or candy left in a pocket. For that matter, I'm the only one who CARES about clean laundry apparently. Oh, correction. Lil Lady is very concerned about her clean jeans or shorts...at 7am before school, when there's no way in hell she's getting them clean if they aren't already in the dryer. Chillgirl is lucky to find matching socks so SHE definitely doesn't care.

My patience with housework and work-work is fair. I have never had the chance to lean on someone else in either place so I just do it.

In my life in general I'm a bit of a crab when something needs to be resolved and it isn't getting done in a timely fashion. Lately that has included family court cases of people in my life. Not necessarily ME, I'm not waiting for my day in court, but the frustration at watching others get put off and delayed for final decisions about major issues in their or their kids' lives is maddening. My sister has had to put her budget and relationship with her son in the court's hands and her lawyer's hands to make things right. They don't care about time. They have many other people waiting as well. We can't resolve this issue in the time allotted for today? Assign another court date in 6 weeks. Next!

My Sinatra is inching ever so slowly toward a resolution of the custody matters with his ex. She doesn't want him moving to my area and is fighting the unrestricted geographical limits in their divorce decree. A social worker is involved to ask all parties about the situation and what they want, mainly with whom the kids want to live. Court dates are set but the appointments for all these interviews are 1-3 weeks out EACH and those court dates will have to be pushed. What's available on the docket? 4 weeks away? 6 weeks? Now we are talking summertime and having interruption of summer plans and eventually school starting again.

Is it wrong to want to know if the man I love and his children will be here by August for school? We aren't moving in together, so it isn't due to me needing to move or pack or change anything logistically about my life. Its just me, wanting to see a bit into my future and know I will have my whole family (yes that means him and his) here to plan our days and weekends and activities and holidays.

It's an exciting thought but there's a mental brick wall standing in my way and all I can do is look up, but have no way of climbing it. I try to ignore it but sometimes I run straight into it and cry and scream (mentally) about the fact that things are out of my control and I am being forced to be patient. Against my will. Against my nature.

I pray. I write. I talk it out with Sinatra or my friends. Stating the obvious and my frustration about the lack of movement of other people because they have nothing invested in the advancement of the issue. If his ex wants the kids to stay close to her, she has no reason to let the courts quickly decide they can move. She's in no hurry to get her interviews or court dates done. He can't move them here with the case ongoing. So why end it?

All I can do is wait for the day I will know either way. I'm not great at it, but I have no choice other than walking away altogether. As I said, I have NO choice.