Karma

Karma is experience, and experience creates memory, and memory creates imagination and desire, and desire creates karma again.  If I buy a cup of coffee, that's karma.  I now have that memory that might give me the potential desire for having cappuccino, and I walk into Starbucks, and there's karma all over again. -- Deepak Chopra

It's just a couple days until Raleigh and yes, I'm freaking out.  I don't think I've had enough time in the open water and I've had a couple of really crappy workouts recently.  I think I may have had a bit of a stomach bug the last couple days (or maybe it's nerves, but usually I don't feel so sick with just nerves) - so I haven't eaten right and that hasn't helped much of anything.  But I'm going to go down there and I'm going to kick Raleigh's butt.  Ha!

Big goal - sub 7:00.  Manageable goal - finish strong with a smile.  Bottom line - finish and get back on the IMLOU training band wagon.

So, KARMA.  This weekend I finally gave back to the tri community - and you know what...Deepak up there is spot on.  Karma is an experience...that creates desire.  My daughter raced Rev3 RUSH at the Richmond Int'l Raceway this past weekend and had a ball.  And I volunteered, both at packet assembly the day before and in the chip tent the day of...and I had a ball too.  I had a great time interacting with all the athletes and it really made me feel like racing again.  Not that I haven't felt like racing - but for the month of May I've been a race & soccer mom and that's different.  The older daughter had a bazillion soccer games between travel and middle school.   The younger daughter had 3 tris - yeah, seriously...she's done until the end of June now - it's just the way the schedule worked.  Even husband raced.  I love being a race mom, and while watching C race is really inspiring, it doesn't make me want to race.  You know what I mean?  It makes me want to be a better person and not give up and aim for the stars.  But it doesn't get my engine revved. 

(She is pretty cute, though...check out some pics my husband took while I was soccer momming with the other child...)

Anyway, being around the race and volunteering made me ready to race (at least until I got that stomach thing).  I'm not sure I'm ready.  I would have like to have spent a little more time in the open water but Mother Nature and my job hate me.  My calves are still not what they were before the marathon.  But I'm revved and ready for Raleigh.  Go me!

(And I would be remiss if I didn't give you some Culture Club, right?  That's what you thought of first when you read "karma," right?  Or is it just me who is stuck in the 80s?)

(EDITED - what is up with the weird formatting???  No idea, but I got to get on my bike.)

Calf Sleeves Are the New Sexy

I like someone who is a little crazy but coming from a good place.  I think scars are sexy because it means you made a mistake that led to a mess.  -- Angelina Jolie

I'm trying to start a new movement here - calf sleeves are the new sexy - kinda like "orange is the new black" or "40 is the new 30" or what have you.  Why?  Because if I'm going to rock them on a regular basis, I want to feel good about it, right?  

My legs have been a little cranky lately, and I got no time for that sort of thing.  So I've been sporting these bad boys.  Monday wasn't so ugly (especially since I had the neon yellow ones on) because it was just a bit cool so I wore long pants.  Today - warmer and wearing linen capris to work, so...yeah.  Just let me tell myself lies.

In addition to the calf sleeves, I have even more sexy going on - I'm sporting some new scars.  Yesterday's "mistake that led to a mess" involved clipping in just a little bit too slowly, resulting in my knee getting cozy with the concrete at the gas station where I stopped for a refill on my long ride.  It's been a long time since I've had a clipping error - but I have new shoes/cleats/pedals, so it was bound to happen.  Might as well get it out of the way, right?

I finally graduated to big-girl cleats/pedals.  I started my clip-in career with the tiny metal mountain bike SPD cleats and have done just fine for years.  But I have also worn a hole in the toe of my bike shoes, so this spring we bought me a new pair of bike shoes (which are super cool)...unfortunately, they don't work with the teensy cleats, so I had to graduate to roadie/tri SPD-SL cleats.  Finally, I know.  I'm a little slow.  I'm keeping the SPDs on my roadie, though.  But we put the SPD-SL on Freyja the tri bike and so, crash in the parking lot.  Super sexy skin-less knee.  Yeah!

So check out these shoes...

Instead of a velcro strap, they have this little dial-y thing.  You click the disk and then spin and your shoe tightens right up.  Pull the disk and you slip right out of the shoe.  SOOOOO COOOOL.  I bought them at our local tri store, Endorphin Fitness, this spring...just took me a while to get over my new pedal drama.

Anyway, I'll keep bringing the sexy back.  :)  As long as calf sleeves and scars are involved, at least.

A Little Help From My Friends

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends. -- John Lennon & Paul McCartney

I'll give you the Beatles version, because I grew up with a Beatles-fanatic father...but I've always been a little partial to Joe Cocker's version myself (and no, not because it was The Wonder Years theme song).

Anyway, do you remember this guy?

By ßlåçk Pærl (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Yeah, it's my good friend, the Open Water Swimming Monkey.  He's not smiling or yawning - he's getting ready to sink his fangs into my back while I'm in the river or lake.  I guess it is more accurate to say that we are NOT friends.  Not at all.  But last night he came to visit me anyway.

I wasn't even going to go to OWS practice, because my daughter had a middle school soccer game (and I feel like I have missed too many of her things this spring as it is between my races and my other daughter's activities).  On the other hand, Raleigh is less than 3 weeks away and I have not really been in the open water to truly swim.  So after having serious mental mama drama, I decided to go to the swim.

And I hated it.  It was hard.  I forgot everything good I learned last year.  I panicked.  I freaked.  I wanted to quit.  I tried to quit - but one of my friends was there..and she didn't let me.  And I am grateful.  Usually it's my mean old husband that keeps me from quitting by mistake, but he was at the soccer game, etc., with the girls.  So it was good to have someone else there pushing me and watching my back.  I hope that I won't need it anymore - it seemed as the season went on last year, I was less frightened about OWS.  But last night I needed the kick in the pants.  Or wetsuit as it were.  Triathlon is a good place to have friends.

Bad Mojo

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude. -- Thomas Jefferson

This past week, really, after Tuesday's awesome long ride, I fell into some bad training mojo.   I was just over it.  Over everything really - I was kind of just crabby at life in general.  Sure, I had a great business trip (and who doesn't love running in Florida), but otherwise my whole outlook was MEH.  This is not a good thing with Raleigh.  Then Muncie.  The Louisville.  Then OBX.

Some of it maybe something my husband said to me that was meant to be sweet but I probably internalized it the wrong way.  Basically he pulled up my race results from the beginning of me doing tris and pointed out that I have been squarely back-of-the-pack, peaking (on one tiny occasion) at middle-of-the-pack.  He said it was impressive that I was even still doing tris, because most people would have given up by now.  I get the point he was trying to make - I am persistent.  I have dug my heels into doing tris and I'm not going to stop just because I suck.  But the hard part was the fact that I have (and pretty much still do) sucked at it.

I don't blame my funk on him.  What's in my mind is my doing...but I need to get out of it.  I have too much training to do - and now is the best time to do it.  It's getting hot, so I can start getting acclimated.  In theory, if my life wasn't so busy, I'd be getting out in the open water more (which I need DESPERATELY!)...gotta figure out how to do this before Raleigh, especially since the idea of wet-suit-legal looks pretty slim.

So anyway, I am banishing my bad mojo.  I missed my Masters swim this morning and can't go because of soccer tonight, so I'm going to head over to the Y pool and try to get a swim in, and then head out for a longish hot run to start getting my heat on.  Tomorrow I'm going to get my nutrition dialed in on my long bike (thinking about doing a short swim or short run ahead of it to really get the nutrition story down).  I didn't have a problem last year at Patriot's but I don't think I ate enough on the bike - plus it wasn't near so hot.

With the right mental attitude I can achieve all my goals.  :)

Random Thoughts

The main thing I'm into is going about on a bike, taking random routes; I'm really into the idea of making up journeys, and just seeing where they take you, because they always end up taking you someplace freaky. -- Tom Jenkinson

Lots of stuff has gone on since last week, but since I have no coherent thread to tie it all together, I'm just going to throw it out there as random thoughts.  You know my brain is kind of jumbly anyway.  :)  Try to follow along!

*  At the end of last week, I finally got to get out on the roads.  Yes, it is time to stop whining about the weather.  I had a nice, hilly ride on Friday which, after Masters, kind of wore me out for the whole weekend.  Given my travel schedule this week, I'm heading out in a little bit for this week's long hilly ride - that ought to wear me out through next weekend, right?

*  It's great to be able to be flexible and get my long workouts in during the week, particularly given the crazy of our weekends (especially in May).  On the other hand, I kind of feel out of sync with the rest of the world.  Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration...but y'know - everyone else plans their long workouts for the weekend and this past Saturday was basically a rest day for me.

*  Speaking of Saturday, I got into the open water - yeah me!  And it didn't kill me.  Granted, I didn't really swim any distance or length of time, but I didn't completely freak and...even better...my wetsuit still fits, even after vacation!  Husband had his first tri of the season and they had a pre-swim at the site, so I went down and swam around as little bit too.  They only let us swim back and forth in a small area, but it was still good to get that first step out of the way.  Hopefully next week when I'm back from travel I'll be able to get a real OWS swim in - Raleigh is sneaking up on me.

*  That's not actually true.  Raleigh is NOT sneaking up on me - I'm acutely aware of how close it is and I do not feel ready.  Some of it is that my workouts haven't been spot on given the weather, etc.  Some of it is that I have totally built up the hills in my head as insurmountable - which is stupid - because they are surmountable even if they are hard.  I need to see this as a challenge in a good way, not in a bad way.

*  So crazy weekends - this past weekend we had 1 volleyball game, 2 soccer games, and 2 triathlons (one hubby, one younger daughter).  Husband did awesome in his first tri of the year.  He did Monticello Man in Charlottesville, VA - HILLY HILLY HILLY.  And he still rocked it.  I'm really proud of him.  Daughter did her first tri of the year also - East Coast Tri Fest kids tri.  It was her first open water tri - and although she didn't do as well as she or I would have hoped, I'm really really proud of her too.  She is conquering the OWS monkey at an early age and that is just amazing.  (One of my Masters coaches also said this last night - he was telling me about how he was kayak support and had a grown woman panic on him - been there, done that! - He was excited that my daughter did so well at so young.)

I don't have pics of hubby, because I couldn't be 3 places at once, but here's daughter before her race.  She's awesome.

Both of them are my inspiration.  And here is You're the Inspiration by Chicago - except that Peter Cetera beats Jason Scheff any day.  And you know it.  :)

*  In other inspirational news - daughter and I also spent the morning on Sunday watching the Junior and Youth Elite race East Coast.  It was amazing to watch the best in the sport doing their best.  Damn they are fast!

*  Finally, a last bit of inspiration.  This past week I finally gave back.  Yeah, I suck.  My family has volunteered.  Older daughter has independently volunteered.  Me?  I'm either racing, chasing children around, or being a wild, cheering mom.  So when the opportunity came up to volunteer and not interfere with all that, I signed up - I stuffed race packets.  Maybe it isn't quite as awesome as handing out water, etc.  I need to find a time to do that too, but it felt good to give back.  I'm also signed up to stuff packets at Rev3 Rush - daughter's 3rd triathlon of May (with RMS PowerKids the week before - yikes).