Category Archives: Stuff I Like

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Good Luck, Boston Marathoners!

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I wanted to give a shout out to two friends from Nashville, Megan Conner and Mark Buckreis, who will be running their hearts out tomorrow at the Boston Marathon. Mark is a fellow member of the Nashville Triathlon Club and Megan is one of the dearest people to me on the planet. She is running on behalf of the American Liver Foundation in honor of her stepfather, who lost his battle with liver cancer in 2004.

Click here to read the story on the 25th Annual ALF Run For Research. You can apply to be a runner or donate to the cause!

Godspeed, runners!

 

Santa Rosa Triathlon Recap: Part 2

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“A trophy carries dust. Memories last forever.” -Mary Lou Retton

I can’t believe it’s been two weeks since the triathlon already. I hit the ground running (well,  maybe not running) as soon as I got back to Nashville. Meetings, new songs, unpacking the new house, house painters, yikes! One of the highlights of the last two weeks was going back to my sports medicine doctor on Thursday the 18th and getting the go ahead to lose my annoying cast! I’m going to be slowly adding the elliptical machine and power walking back into the mix and hopefully, in a month will be able to run/walk a couple of miles at a time.

Here is my Santa Rosa Island Triathlon Recap: Part 2 in pictures:

(View from the relay holding area.)

(Kind of wish I had taken a spin on this. Next year.)

(My team-mate hustling into the relay transition area after smoking the course on his bike.)

(The timing chip hand-off. Harder than it looks.)

(Go, girl, go!)

(Bringing it home for the If You Never Tri Team)

(Big bag. Small sister.)

(Free post-race massages in the pavilion)

(Thank you, Charles and Ann)

(Post-race hang on Pensacola Beach)

(Real or fake?)

(My overactive imagination says real.)

(Post-race beach time at the Portofino Resort)

(Ahhh.)

(You know it’s hot out here for a pimp.)

(Out there somewhere is part of our team diving for shells.)

A little bit about the food:

(A little bit of heaven on a plate at the Paradise Inn)

(Lunch with a view)

(Leaning tower of grease at Flounder’s)

(One last seafood blowout the night before heading back to Nashville)

And for a bit of the absurd:

(Best chachki ever at Alvin’s Island Souvenir Store. This is a lamp people.)

So there is Part 2 of my recap of the Santa Rosa Island Triathlon. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about the Shark Week experience I promised. That deserves a post of its own and its coming soon!

26 Days To Go: Houses, Songs and Board Meetings

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“Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.” -Henry Adams

Today is a “life gets in the way day,” a phrase I learned from a friend earlier this year regarding missed workouts. Unfortunately I had to bag my swim workout today, but plan to hit the pool after my physical therapy appointment in the morning. The only thing about missing my workout today means that instead of one workout tomorrow, I am going to try and squeeze in two. We’ll see how that plan pans out.

My day started with a trip to the new house to check on the progress of the new floors, pick out a stain color for the hardwood and to meet with a cabinet-maker. I baked cookies for the floor guys, which made the supervisor on the job feel extra bad when he accidentally splattered me with walnut-colored wood stain while showing me finish options. Those kinds of things really don’t bother me. As someone who spills things on herself at least 7 times a day, I get it. It’s ok.

Speaking of new houses. The movers come on Saturday and guess how many boxes I’ve packed? If you guessed a big fat zero, you win the prize. What’s the prize? That would be my undying gratitude for the fact that you are taking time out of your day to read this.

After I left the new house I drove straight to a session to work on a new pop track that I wrote with two of my favorite co-writers, Georgia Thomas and Paul Umbach. He co-wrote a little pop hit called “Love” by Matt White. Yep. He’s good. It was a nice break in all of the craziness to be in the studio working with two friends who also happen to be great musicians. Two straight days of plugging my amazing musical friends. Can’t help myself.

 

For my next task of the day I will be meeting with the board of the Nashville Triathlon Club for the their monthly meeting. Why? It turns out that I will be helping them with their website and blog. I find that hilarious. Me? The Newbie? Going to the Nashville Triathlon Club board meeting? Admit it. It’s amusing. The tortoise and the hares.

Hopefully I will get some packing in after I get home from the meeting. Life is going to be crazy for the little while and that’s ok. I just need to do the next right thing in all areas of life and maintain the attitude of gratitude I mentioned a few posts ago. All of the things in life vying for my time, energy and brain space are blessings.  A new house, new triathlon friends and getting to do what I love every day?  I’ll take it.

Birthday Recap: No. 2 Pencils and A New Triathlon Coach

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“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” -Satchel Paige

Friday, August 24th was my birthday and it was a good one. I told anyone who would listen that all I really wanted for my birthday was peace and harmony in my life and a state-of-the-art cordless pencil sharpener. I’m serious. I don’t like writing in pen. I keep my schedule in a bulky At-A-Glace planner and I like for everything to be written in pencil. I have all the modern technology that allows for a person to keep a tidy, synch-able online calendar; an iMac, an iPhone and a Macbook, but I’m either old school or have an advanced case of OCD. According to at least one professional, it’s the latter. The other part of my quandary is that I can’t keep up with my mechanical pencils and when I do find one, it’s out of lead and I’ve misplaced the lead refills. Thankfully, that is not an issue I will face anymore.

(On the way to dinner with my new best friend.)

(Visually stunning.)

(Thank you BFF Megan for the awesome Coach purse, but more importantly, the pencils.)

I also was surprised with something I didn’t ask for, a Cuisinart juicer. This thing is enormous and I have no idea what to do with it, but I suppose I should start doing some research into the art of juicing. My last experience with a freshly pressed juice was not amazing. I will only say this: Don’t drink half of a celery/apple/carrot juice from Whole Foods and then leave it in your car for 4 days in 100-degree weather. Just don’t. On a more positive note, maybe having a juicer of my very own will be a turning point in my otherwise, continuously botched attempt to clean up my diet. If I can figure out how to make juice with protein, I’ll be on a roll. Suggestions are welcome.

(Juicy beauty.)

On the gastronomical subject, I had a wonderful birthday dinner here in Nashville with 10 great friends and, of course, ate too much.

(Don’t be fooled by the lettuce. This salad is in no way healthy.)

I did buy one thing for myself for my birthday this year and that gift came in the form of triathlon coaching services from TriSuccess in Nashville. I’ve been working with Caroline Butler for almost a month now and she is pretty darn great! I met Caroline and her business partner, Kathleen last month and am in my 3rd week of their training plan. I could’ve splurged on a shiny new something for myself, but the return on my coaching investment is already more exciting than the sparkly Alexis Bittar bracelet that has softly called my name for two months. Between swimming, biking, running and the strength training workouts, I have 8 planned workouts a week, with one rest day. So far, due to a little stomach bug, I’ve only missed two of the workouts. I feel incredibly accountable to these inspiring ladies and the plan they’ve put together for me. Side note: I am lucky to have had the help of a friend (who I’ve referred to as Ironman in previous posts) who put together my first training plans and got me fully prepared to jump headfirst into these last five weeks of training with Caroline. Thank you, IM. You know who you are.

Happy Birthday to all you Virgos out there!

Calories Out, Too Many Hush Puppies In: Training, Food and a Trip To Mississippi

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“Anyway, like I was sayin’, shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey’s uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that’s about it.” -Bubba, Forrest Gump 

Wednesday I drove home from a five-day trip down to the MS Coast. Minus getting lost on a back road in Alabama thanks to an unexpected highway closure and detour, it was uneventful. (Sidebar: I sometimes actually like a good detour. Getting lost is a great way to discover new things, in this case, the Everhope Plantation.) My bike did not fly off the bike rack at my sort-of legal cruising speed and I didn’t indulge my urge to stock up on chotchkies at the Stuckey’s gas station. I very much love Stuckey’s gas stations. I love that I can fill up my tank, grab a drink and purchase a two-foot long stick of Oriental musk incense or a key chain-sized dream catcher. When I drive home for Christmas, at least one or two people get one of the famous Stuckey’s pecan log rolls in their stocking, classic and diabetes inducing. If you have no idea what the heck a Stuckey’s is click here.

(Photo Source: Stuckeys.com)

Before heading down to the coast last week, I knew deep in my soul that there was potential for major warfare between my will power, my fork and my mouth. We’re talking about the Gulf Coast here, people. If you can catch it, you can fry it. In fact, I’m not sure that I knew before leaving the coast for college that people prepared seafood any other way. If it wasn’t fried, it was at least covered and smothered in a crabmeat cream sauce of some sort. Grilled fish with lemon? There are at least 7 ingredients missing in that little recipe. Batter, up, please!

My plan to counteract the inevitable barrage of calorie bombs was to not skip even one training session while on vacation. The only days I had off according to the plan were on the days that I drove; because you know it just takes so much out of you to sit on your butt for seven and a half hours and not fall asleep at the wheel. Here is the official Biloxi 2012 fitness and food breakdown:

Day 1: I drove to Mississippi and headed straight to Chef Scott’s in Ocean Springs, MS for southern style sushi filled with cream cheese and covered in crawfish and smoked whitefish. I have to give my 21-month old niece and her deft baby hands props for being more proficient in using chopsticks than I will ever be. I got a nosebleed on the way home from dinner and the only thing I could attribute it to was the ferocity with which I stuffed approximately 30 pieces of sushi in my mouth. Gross, I realize, but it’s how things went down.

Day 2: I got in a 2-mile run and an 800-meter swim in the morning. I was able to get a 5-day pass at my sister’s gym so that I could get in my swims. Thank you eFitness in Biloxi, MS. My brother-in-law and sister, Christopher and Kelly, are also training for a triathlon so it worked out perfectly.

 

I had lunch that day with my mother and ordered a lovely grilled snapper salad. I must admit, though, that before the salads came, I fell face-first into a bowl of hush puppies and negated any positive choices I made with my actual meal.

Later in the evening, at the Ruth’s Chris in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, it was round 2: me against crab stuffed mushrooms, oysters, steak and sweet potato casserole. I did not win, but at least we looked good doing it.

 

Day 3: I had an amazing hour and a half bike ride down to the beach with my dad. Later in the day, we all met at my parent’s house for Sunday dinner, which was another amazing meal complete with pork roast and homemade banana pudding pie. One cannot be expected to pass up a home-cooked Sunday dinner, right?

Day 4: I completed another 800-meter swim. In the afternoon, my two sisters and I got together with their children and survived a wicked thunderstorm with the help of a pan of brownies.

Later, for dinner, my brother-in-law fried up all of the fish he and my nephew caught the day before, plus some okra and French fries. It’s not my fault he’s a wizard with a deep fryer.

 

Day 5: My dad and I got in another bike ride. Not as long as the one on Sunday, but still a good workout. For the final meal of my stay, Christopher made what is officially my favorite meal on the planet, traditional barbecued shrimp. The name is deceiving. The “barbecue sauce” is actually a mixture of butter, spices, celery, lemons and some other ingredients that I can’t recall. I purposefully do not have the recipe for fear that my life would become nothing more than one big trip to the grocery store to buy shrimp and butter. I was too busy inhaling the shrimp to stop and take a picture.

Day 6: I drove home from Mississippi back to Nashville. No workout, although, I was completely unpacked within two hours of being home. Endurance unpacking is apparently my forte.

Today is Friday and I’m still feeling a bit groggy from the food hangover I came home with, but I got right back on the training wagon yesterday with a great run. It was overall a wonderful little getaway, but it’s back to regular life and a much cleaner diet. Maybe.

Next: My two new coaches from TriSuccess in Nashville!

A Few Additions To the Workout Music Mix

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Yep. These are some of my recent workout playlist obsessions. Add them to your playlist, put on your running shoes and fist pump your way through the streets. Do it!

Fighter by Jason Chen 

Finale by Madeon

Renegade by Eva Simons

This Is Love (feat. Eva Simons) by Will.i.am

These Are The Days (feat. Ruby Prophet) by Audien

Why We Run (feat. Susie) by Ben Preston

 

What Is YOUR Olympics?

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(Photo Source: the Kroger cereal aisle and me)

“I don’t rank competitions – every single one is the Olympics to me.” – Blanka Vlasic

In the fall of 2005, I sat at a table in Greenwich Village having lunch with one of the most important people in my life, my oldest and dearest friend, John. He and I met some years earlier in music school in a theory class that we both found torturous and became instantly inseparable. I’d never been to New York during that time of year and it felt and looked different from the other times I had been there, which were twice in the heat of the summer and once in the dead of winter.

On this particular day, the Village looked like a living, breathing Instagram photo, complete with the sun casting an insta-vintage, dreamy, golden and slightly out-of-focus filter over the neighborhood. (The out-of-focus feature potentially being the result of my two-martini lunch, or wine in this case.) John was there for a private audition with the Sarasota Opera’s Young Artist Program and I was his moral support. We sat at lunch talking about how it had once been our dream to live and work together in the New York musical theater world and about how strange it was that our lives had taken such divergent paths. At the time, I was in and out of Nashville writing country music and he was working on the Mid-Atlantic Coast in the classical music world, singing at Wolf Trap and the Washington National Opera, among other storied institutions. We talked about the difficulties of pursuing a career in the arts and how this opportunity was, for him, an important next step in his classical career.

During the course of the conversation he said to me, “Robin, all of this, it’s worth it. This is my Olympics.” That statement had a profound, hammer-over-the-head effect on me in that moment, and it wasn’t just the alcohol. After lunch, while we walked over to the church where the audition was being held, the one thing I thought about, besides the butterflies I felt for my friend, was what, in my life, would be the equivalent of an Olympic moment.

It wasn’t long after the trip to New York that I sold half of my belongings, packed up the good things in my life, left the rest and carted myself, for good, to Nashville to give my version of the Olympic dream a real chance.

Flash forward to 2012 and I’m still thinking about his statement, especially now that the Olympics are here again and I’ve found myself in front of the television watching my favorite event and crying every time one of our Team USA gymnasts does well and sticks a landing or breaks and has a wobble on the beam. I’ll admit to being empathic to a fault and somewhat overly emotional, but I’m a bit suspicious of people who aren’t moved by the thought of what it takes, in sacrifice and hard work, to nail a performance at the Olympics or by the unbearable heartbreak of falling short of your dream by a half of a tenth of a point.

A few weeks ago, out of curiosity, I started asking friends and family what they considered to be their “Olympics.” The answers I’ve been receiving are part “that was my moment” and part “I hope to see this moment.” I’m going to share a few of them with you.

I’ll start with Kelly, my sister and the mommy of two amazing small humans. This was her answer to my question:

My Olympic dream is to raise my kids in such a way that they will grow into who they are supposed to be without me imposing any of my own expectations or judgments; but more so, that they will be fearless in the pursuit of their passion. Growing up painfully shy, I never really left my comfort zone and therefore didn’t try many of things that I was interested in.  I hope to be successful in raising two moral and confident people who, even it they do have regrets, will know that NOT following their dreams won’t be one of them.

That moves me. A mother’s sweat and tears along with the kind of blood that comes in the form of scraped knees and the boo-boos that mamas mend, are no less deserving of a gold medal or Wheaties box cover than a perfect performance in an Olympic event. Do you hear that, Wheaties? Next time you’re looking for a hero to put on your box, look no further than your local playground.

 

(Kelly with one of her precious small humans. Photo Source: Me)

The next response I received via e-mail was from a friend I met last year during a volunteer job here in Nashville. We became pretty fast friends and she is a person who I felt immediately comfortable sharing my stories with. Her name is Leslie. She’s a social worker, a sculptor of small clay animals and she makes me laugh. I got her permission to post her e-mail response in its entirety, because I found that her story is better told in her own voice. Here are Leslie’s Olympic life moments:

So, I actually had to think about this a little bit, but after figuring it out, I’m not sure why. I have 3 Olympics, 2 past and 1 current (as of Tuesday!) One of my defining achievements was extracting myself from a terrible marriage and moving to Nashville from CA by myself. I had to limit my belongings to what would fit in my car and the 8 boxes I shipped to myself. It taught me a lot about what I really needed to live and when to let go of “stuff.” I also learned that I can start over and reinvent myself, creating a person that I’m happier with than the one who ended up in a crappy relationship.

My next Olympics was getting through graduate school without getting arrested for assault or ending up in rehab. I wanted to quit sooooo badly, but I was lucky to have a supportive husband (the amazing 2nd husband, not the terrible 1st husband) who kept telling me I’d look back and believe it was worth it. He was right. Between the move to Nashville and meeting my goal of getting out of grad school with a 4.0, I feel like there’s nothing I can’t do. Until….

This past Tuesday I started laser hair removal on my legs. I’m a hairy, hairy brunette and it has been a dream for a long time to deal with my legs. I was unable to get through Tuesday’s appointment and went back today, covered in even more numbing cream, and still couldn’t get through the appointment. I’m rescheduled for Sept. 6, when I’ll have some prescription strength numbing cream in my corner.

If I can make it through one year of laser appointments, there won’t be anything that I’ll find intimidating. A cross-country move, graduate school, and now physical pain…I’m ready to take on the world!”

Go, Leslie, go! She gets a gold medal for finding the will to leave a marriage that left her emotionally depleted and looking for any and every way to get out. I can assure you that the Leslie I know wouldn’t take any crap from anybody. She’s a small person with big-time strength (and soon-to-be permanently carefree, hair-free legs.)

 

(Leslie and me at the Frist Center where we volunteer. Photo Source: Leslie’s husband)

I’m also posting my next friend’s e-mail in its entirety, because trying to edit her, in any way, is like trying to rope a wild horse. I love her for that. Melany and I wrote a lot of songs together before she moved to New York City and I was sad to see her move away. Here are the thoughts of a singing, songwriting wonder-diva with Olympic-sized talent on what she hopes will be her Olympic moments in life:

My three main goals in life were to attain a record deal, move to New York, and lose the rest of my weight.

2 of the three goals were attained! Well, at least the New York goal. I still want to lose the rest of my weight. I have to keep reminding myself, “Melany, you used to weight 250lbs! Be GRATEFUL!” It’s so crazy that I used to be that big. I lost 75lbs. All I wanted was to be a size 10-12. Now that I’m involved in a music career, I gotta be a size 4-6. I feel like I have used my weight as an excuse for YEARS. I hid behind it thinking I wouldn’t achieve my goal.

Well, I have come to the conclusion that God made me to be curvy. I’m ok with this finally. I’ve also come to the conclusion that if I ever want to lose weight for good, I have to do it for no one but myself. My whole life I was dieting for someone else. My father, the Junior High Volley Ball Team, the high school crush, the music career… NEVER for myself.

I guess the ultimate dream (My Olympics) will be to set out and actually lose the weight for good. I want to flaunt pics of my size 6 ass all over the WWW for the world to see how much I love myself! I want the world to see that I lost the weight for ME MYSELF AND I…. Not for a music career, not for a boy, not for anyone but my damn self.

Doesn’t that make you want to get your Aretha on and sing RESPECT at the top of your lungs? Melany gets a gold, a silver and a bronze. Listen to THIS girl sing.

 

(Melany and me in the studio last fall. Photo Source: Melany’s iPhone)

After hearing and reading these declarations of dreaming big, I’ve come to the conclusion that there are as many kinds of Olympic-sized life events, gold medals and medal podiums as there are people. Some medal ceremonies take place in delivery rooms, board rooms and courtrooms. Some receive their medals on a theater stage or after crossing the finish line of a marathon, or triathlon, in my case. (Hopefully.) Some ceremonies take place inside a pair of skinny jeans or behind the desk of a social worker whose success will go largely unnoticed and to little applause. Whatever you want your Olympic moment in life to be, go for it, no matter how big or small you think it seems. I’m grateful to my friends who shared their dreams, goals and moments with me in e-mails and in conversation. I was inspired as much by their stories as I was last night, tears and all, watching Team USA’s female gymnasts live their dream.

Cheers to the Olympics! What are your “Olympic” moments?

Off The Rails: A Triathlon-Related Shopping Bender

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“The odds of going to the store for a loaf of bread and coming out with only a loaf of bread are three billion to one.”  ~Erma Bombeck

It was a big week, folks, in the competitive world of endurance shopping, but the underdog from Nashville takes the gold! Yes, I’m looking at a pile of lovely and sporty purchases and realizing that I may have flexed my spending muscle more than my actual muscles this week.

Scene: A lazy, rainy Saturday afternoon in Acme Multisports, a shop specializing in triathlon gear. It’s quiet because it’s the end of the day and I am one of the last customers in the store. One of the staff members has his son’s adorable puppy in the store with him and it’s roaming around looking adorable and trying to find something to chew on. I’m also roaming around the store, looking not nearly as adorable as the puppy, chewing on my fingernails because I know I should stop, but I can’t. I have an arm-full of stuff and I’m about to head to the counter when I am distracted suddenly by a book about beginner triathletes. I can’t pass it up. I must have it. I’m a beginner after all. Oh, yes, and throw in those handy silicone ear plugs.

I pay for my items and get the following advice from the nice man with the puppy: “Keep it simple. Don’t over-pack and bring a ton of stuff with you into the transition area. I see people dragging in 5-gallon buckets and all kinds of stuff they don’t need. Keep it to just what you need, so there’s less to think about and you can get in and get out.” So says he to the girl who just bought another bag full of triathlon-related materials.

Here is a list of what I bought this week at ACME, the Nike Outlet and online:

-A membership to the Nashville Triathlon Club so I can participate in their open-water swim practices.

-A very nifty Blackburn Air Tower 2 bicycle pump.

-Garneau cycling gloves

-TYR soft silicone ear plugs

-2 neon-colored Nike Dri-Fit running shirts

-Garneau Triathlon shorts and shirt

-Your First Triathlon by Joe Friel

Ok, so did I need a complete race-day ensemble at this juncture? Probably not, but spandex and I have had a tumultuous relationship and I figure the more time I have with it, the better friends we will become. And it was on sale.

I actually did need all of this stuff. The book may have been an impulse purchase, but better a book than a kayak. (In case you’re wondering how a kayak fits into all of this, I saw a kayak in Sun & Surf Sports recently and had an unexplained urge to buy it. I did not.) I can’t imagine what else I could possibly need or want in the sports-related gear department, but I’m sure some need or another will reveal itself and send me scurrying back to the sporting-goods store.

Until then I am going to be planning my first telethon to support my first triathlon: Robin’s Holy-Crap-This-Is-An-Expensive-Hobby Triathlon Telethon. Thank you and goodnight.

*On a less ridiculous note: The guys at Acme Multisports in Goodlettsville, TN were awesome and very helpful. Check out their link:

http://www.acmemultisports.com

Independence Day!

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“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.”  

-Erma Bombeck

Thank you to my ancestor Captain James Campbell for fighting in the Continental Army!

To my lovely British friends: About that Revolution? Ummmm…….Love ya!

A Bizarre Triathlon Dream and a Training Update

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“There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.” -Douglas H. Everett

It’s getting closer! 97 days until my first triathlon and I must be having some sort of sub-conscious training crisis because I had the wackiest, and I mean wacky, dream about competing in one. I tend to have truly bizarre dreams and usually remember them in spectacularly vivid detail. Since this one, in particular, was about a triathlon and this blog is ultimately about my experience preparing for one, I will share a bit of it. Feel free to analyze. I have my own amateur psychoanalysis of what it all means, which I will lay out after the following dose of crazy:

The scene is somewhere in Hawaii. I am standing by myself at the start line and I realize that I’m in a t-shirt and shorts and have forgotten my goggles. In this triathlon, the run is first so I send a total stranger back to my hotel room to find them for me. Slowly the other triathletes begin to show up and get into place. There are only two waves. One for women and one for men. The first thing I notice is that all of the female triathletes look like fitness models and there are only about 20 of them competing with me in the race. I start feeling uneasy because the stranger is not back with my goggles yet and a tall gray-haired man is about to blow the horn. Oh, well. I’ll get them later.

The horn blows and we’re off. I immediately fall behind and realize that there are no signs, course markers or people directing us as we go and I am completely lost and yelling about the lack of organization of this race and that I’m not psychic. How am I supposed to know where to go?  A map and my car magically appear, so I jump in and start to drive around looking for the 20 fitness models/triathletes. I see no one, but I do find half a bag of chocolate covered peanuts in the passenger seat of my car, so I eat them. I finally see what looks like a train station with a balloon and a handmade cardboard sign attached to the front door and assume that it has something to do with the triathlon. It does.

The train station is the transition area and I have to buy a ticket to get to the swim portion of the race. Before I abandon my car, I make sure to hide my laptop (because out of nowhere my Mac shows up) under the seat and lock the doors. I sprint up to the station and buy a ticket only to miss the first train. I buy ticket after ticket and miss each one. Because this is a dream, I abruptly find myself in a completely different location. I have apparently changed into a sundress and am sitting in the back of a military transport helicopter. A horrifying realization hits me over the head as I come to understand that I’m going to have to jump out of the helicopter into the Pacific in order to compete in the swim portion of the triathlon. In a dress. With no goggles. I jump out of the helicopter and find myself swimming underneath the water, just behind the fitness models, through coral and an underwater cavern. I realize that I can’t breathe and I wake up.

What. The. Hell.

What does all THAT mean? Here is my take:

  1. My first triathlon is 3 MONTHS AWAY! It’s time to step it up. It’s time to not rationalize my way out of getting in all of my training sessions. Don’t feel like training? Do it anyway. I’ve found that in life, when I don’t want to do something, that’s exactly when I should.
  2. I’m very confident on the bike. If I were on a triathlon relay team, I would most definitely choose the bike. But last time I checked, a triathlon is not Bike. Bike. More Bike. My swimming is strong, but if you’ve read any of my posts about open-water swimming, you know that it’s a bit of a mental hurdle for me. Running? No love lost there.
  3. I need not let my reputation precede me into the triathlon. What do I mean by that? Someone recently said to me, “If you don’t knock over ten bikes in the transition area, I’ll be surprised and disappointed.” That’s hilarious and, in general, a warranted statement, but I think that letting past calamities cloud my growing confidence is something I need to let go of.

I’ve decided that at the end of every week, I will post a recap of my training efforts. That is why I started this blog in the first place; to keep myself accountable, in some public way, for doing the work. I post my thoughts on a lot of different subjects, but the title of this blog is IfYouNeverTri, and tri-ing I am.

Here is a little inspiration for you: I follow a blog called One Day At A Time, written by a woman in Australia who is training for a half IM, her first triathlon in 8 years. Reading about her training efforts inspires me to make no excuses. 

Here are a few more that I follow and find entertaining and inspiring:

Fit Recovery

Socially Fit

The Dancing Runner

 

 

(Photo Credit: My iPhone)