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.

Sweet Sunday

For all the days of hellish temperatures and lack of rain we had last summer here in Texas, Mother Nature has blessed us with early spring sunshine and mild temperatures as early as late January. We did not get the obligatory freeze we usually get once a year where Texans try to drive and walk in the icy tundra and fail miserably. No snow either. We barely noticed winter.

We are used to dealing with wearing layers because of our normal temperature swings from 35 to 85 in a single day. This is not unusual. I love it actually. This year, due to my hormone medication, I'm mostly warmer than the average person and can get away with a scarf and a light jacket for the mornings and a light shirt in the afternoons. Riding my bike I have to decide early if my legs can handle the cool earlier in the ride, so I'm not sweating by the end. Layers.

Today was one of those days where it was pretty perfect from the minute I got up. The fact that I got up at 8:30am to the sound of birds tweeting outside my window and the kids playing in the backyard already was start of the perfect.

We made it to mass on time with everyone in attendance, and that's not easy. Never mind that Lil Lady only wanted to go because I was stopping at Walmart on the way home and she had money burning a hole in her wallet she was dying to spend. Chillgirl had a friend along so she was fine with whatever. A little divine exposure before Walmart is bound to be a good thing.

We came home from church/Walmart and I began to make an amazing salmon salad with new veggies I just ordered from an online local veggie dealer. Some of the freshest produce I have ever tasted. The kids were outside playing and my windows were open. I ate and then quickly mowed the weeds in the front yard. My front yard is tiny and with it being 95% weeds, it was fast work.

My besties came over to chat about our upcoming ski trip for Spring Break and then we went running. I'd done a long ride yesterday so my legs were like "what the heck?" but I ignored them and managed almost 6 miles. We got to house-dream while running by in some of the neighborhoods with larger homes. Hey, I can look, I just can't break-and-enter, right?

Then back to the yard work. My backyard has some serious grass growing, which I would prefer to have in the front yard, where everyone can see it, but no, its in the backyard and 4 times as much of it. My backyard could fit 4-5 of my front yards in it. Off to mow I go. Even that was nice. My dogs were out there playing with each other and following me around. The sun was getting lower since it was 4pm by then. My backyard trees make a canopy over the yard and it really ends up being very pretty when the grass is cut.

My daughter was in a cleaning mood so I suggested she work on the garage. She went to town! I helped her organize a bit but she really took the lead on clearing out old toys and trash and leaves and the bikes and now it's so nice. And she is proud of herself. Win-win.

So a clean soul, a clean body, a clean yard, a clean garage, and a semi-clean house in one perfect Sunday. What else can I ask for?

A halfway-decent Monday?

This Up Next: 6-Month Mammo Check

Next Friday is my first mammogram on the left side since my diagnosis and treatment. I am not overly worried something will be found. I had the surgeries, they came back clear. I had the radiation, "rads" to us insiders, and I'm on the protective hormones now for the last 5 months. I feel well insulated from the narrow possibility that there are more microcalcifications like what they found a year ago. Yes, there is a smidgen of a chance there is some area that all these treatments somehow skipped over, but I am choosing to believe chances of that are slim.

The appointment brings up discomfort in that it reminds me of and puts me back in that place and time when I was "fighting cancer". Going into the office to meet with the oncologists is an entrance back into that club. I am okay with it while I'm there. I'm so incredibly lucky that my history was a quick and easy one, but as I look around there, it is also a reminder of how badly it could've gone or what else could happen.

I will go through this follow-up check, and the next one, and the next one. I also plan to continue to do what I can to live a great life in the meantime. I will go to exciting places, laugh a lot with my family and friends, and make plans for new experiences and adventures.

Every six months I will step back into that club, and silently give thanks I am only there for a moment, no matter what happens.