what day is it?

I can't believe it has been so long since my last post. I'm still keeping tabs on the tri-bloggy world, but I can barely breathe at the moment, so I'm hanging on for dear life in the rest of my life and waiting for this wild ride to come to a halt at the end of Aug. I wish I could post some inspiring workout or spectacular insight into training and tri life, but that is not really where my focus has been lately. Granted my number one tri-goal for this season is to graduate...that does seem to be coming a long. It's going to be a messy show of the next few months, but get-r-done is the focus. Any thing else is just icing.

As far as triathlon, i've come to a weird cross roads in it all. It's a bit weird to explain the process and the fact that even though things have come and gone and even though my training isn't really what I'd have hoped for I'm learning about myself as an athlete. I think that one day soon I will be truly able to see that athlete as an extension of myself instead of it being something I 'do'...and I know I would have lost that if I had really ground down on myself in a manner that was becoming non-productive. It's too hard to explain on a public space like a blog, but I do believe that in the end all will turn right for me and my training.

So in the meantime, I'm discovering the beauty of the bike ride and the country roads, and the slow swim strokes, and the rhythmic side to side breathing, the foot falls on the pavement and the sunshine on my face.

Enjoy every stroke, peddle and step. Each one is more of a gift than we sometimes credit it for.

Breathe in...breathe out...

it is beautiful

Schedule

Well...i thought about it. And even though my life is making me nutty at the moment and at times I fear that a focused training schedule could make me crabbier and crazier, I've thrown a bit of caution to the wind and I'm going to focus on a June Oly in 14 weeks from now. I am thinking it might be possible for me to do Ashland(even with my friend's wedding the day before)...so i've created a schedule to do Ashland Oly...and a 1/2 mary two weeks before.

Oi...

it all could push me off the deep end...or it will keep me going off the deep end. Who knows.

I find creating tri schedule for myself entirely entertaining because in truth...i have NO idea what i'm doing. I've read some books/websites and it is my 4th true season of training so I have the gist of what's going on...but still...i think i feel a little silly at times assuming I *know* what the heck I'm doing. Prior to my first true tri season 4 years ago i had never done a sport where scheduled training was part of the deal...i mean I played Ultimate competitively (somewhat) in college and soccer in high school...but nothing ever in a fashion where I had this schedule of work outs aside from showing up to practice so this whole tri thing has been a source of bumbling and entertainment.

So I took the first part of the 'intermediate' Oly schedule from www.trinewbies.com chopped chunks out of it added more running since i'll be doing a 1/2 mary two weeks before, dropped some swimming...added a brick...made it required that I do do one day of yoga a week, and IF i so choose, i can do a second day although then that means yoga on my rest day...not the end of the world. So my whole 'schedule' looks somewhat different than the beginning of the schedule. But I figure that since my longest bike will be 45miles and i'll be doing PLENTY of running...the swimming will be adequate (nothing stellar that's for sure), it'll get me through the finish line strong.

Happy daylight savings!!

Learning to fly...

Birds fall from the window ledge above mine.
Then they flap their wings at the last second.
I said birds fall from the window ledge above mine.
Then they flap their wings at the last second.
But unless I get up,
Walk across the room
And peer down below,
I won't see their last second curves
Toward a, a horizontal flight.
All these birds just falling from the ledge like stones.

Now due to a construct in my mind
That makes their falling and their flight
Symbolic of my entire existence,
It becomes important for me
To get up and see
Their last second curves toward flight.
..lyrics taken from .Mr. Mastodon Farm by Cake

Flying...someone once told me that this whole graduate school 'process' is similar to flying. People can only help you so far. You grow to a point where you start to think or believe or realize that maybe you can actually fly off that ledge. They can encourage you up to that ledge where you have to trust that you have the wings to fly.

For me right now, I feel like I have lept off the ledge and i'm in a free fall stage prior to actually flying. I've jumped and I see where i'm headed....AKKKKKKKKDOWN...and i'm flapping those wings. Somewhere along the way I believed enough that I could fly off that ledge, but right now I am not *actually* flying yet...i am in the free fall stage of the jump where my heart has sunk to the pit of my stomach, and I feel like I am going to throw up, I am flapping my little wings as hard as I can and I am starting to wonder when these 'wings' are going to actually work. When I get outside my brain for a second I can rationalize that will work at some point, but being in that free fall stage of the flight i'm having that seed of doubt and I'm starting to wonder if that was such a good idea to throw myself off that ledge back there. But the reality is it is too late to do anything else but fly.

Therefore I will learn to fly.

consistency

My goal this past week was to be consistent in my training, and I was consistent in not doing any of my training...argh. OK over exaggeration...in the last 7 days I got 4 in...but I totally missed from tuesday to thrusday. My major problem was that by Friday I was SUPER keyed up due to not having exercised the previous 3 days. Note to self: exercise DOES help with the stress levels don't forget that.

I'm at a point where I'm a borderline stress case (understatement)with all the work going on so I can graduate this summer and so I have this INTENSE desire to be at work all the time...and well that is good because I need to be there...and I"m getting lots done, but it can be not good all at the same time. Getting some training in helps immensely with my basket-caseness yet sometimes I forget that. Why is that so easy to forget? Why oh why?

Anyway I did get on the trainer on friday night. And I went for a GREAT 6 mile run today. Last week I was running 10:30 miles or so and this week many of my miles were sub 10. At the moment the focus is supposed to be base building so i'm not supposed to be worrying too much about how fast i'm going, but I still like to know :-)

I'm still trying to figure out what tri's i'm going to do this summer. I had thought I might do an oly mid june...but that is proving difficult to schedule due to a friend's wedding...so...hmmm...i donno. Still working on that.

The goal this week...get off my butt and actually go and get my swim pass...my goodness it's MARCH...and I have no swim pass which means I have not been to the pool since Dec. oops.

happy training

seasons

Four seasons in one day
Lying in the depths of your imagination
Worlds above and worlds below
The sun shines on the black clouds hanging over the domain

Even when you're feeling warm
The temperature could drop away
Like four seasons in one day...



Ah... Crowded House...it's not quite four season in one day right now in New England, in fact as I was out for a run this morning I realized that New England doesn't have four seasons...it has something like 8 or more depending on the year.

There is fall which everyone thinks is absolutely beautiful...and it is.

And then there is early winter where the snow has come down, it's not yet christmas, it's festive, snuggling in front of the fire with a hot cup of tea is quaint...it's quintessential New England.

Then there is post christmas....itsfreakingcoldmakeitstop season...that's usually from about Jan to some time in Feb. That's the season where you try to figure out how to put on more than 20 pieces of clothing all at once, look like a giant walking marshmallow person and try not to let it bother you that your boogers freeze when you go outside and it's so cold it makes you cough when you breath.

Then there is pre-mud season I have recently named "gross season". This week was the epitome of gross season. Friday the weather report called for a 'wintery mix'...aka gross wet coldness. It snowed 3 inches or so thursday night and then proceeded to pour rain on friday leaving us with a nasty slushy muck. Although the nice and quaint New Englandness of this season is the cute little maple syrup buckets attached to the maple trees. They are cute.

Soon after gross season is mud season where it has sorta stopped snowing and now it's just raining trying to get rid of the snow.

Then SUDDENLY (typically Memorial day weekend this happens) it is 'summer'. It's the nice part of summer, 75-80 degrees not too humid, making you enjoy the season and thinking how great being in NE in the summer is...and then it becomes...

Hot and gross summer...80-90 percent humidity with no air conditioning and temps in the 90s. Even hot and gross summer doesn't bother me that much...but people sure like to talk about it a lot.

So...i'd say that in a typical year there are 7-8 seasons...there can sometimes be some more seasons mixed in there. Like this year we had 'pretending not to be winter' season where there was no snow and not very cold.

But hey that's how it goes I guess. I am trying to be all giddy about these seasons right now as soon there will be less of them...maybe when my socks stop getting wet I'll be happy with all the seasons...

that IS a light at the end of the tunnel

It truly is a light at the end of the tunnel...and not a train coming towards me. :-) SO...things are going pretty well. 40 minutes on the trainer this morning. Whoohoo.

AND the big news about the job thing...i was re-reading my posts and realized I should update. A week ago, I was offered both positions I was interviewing for and on Friday I accepted one of them! So weird to take a job that you won't start for 7 months...but now I don't have to stress about finding a job AND finishing up the stupid book (aka dissertation). Now I can just focus the crazy on one thing at a time. And can we say 'motivation?'

OK at the same time this is hugely motivating and amazingly frightening. I have so many things to do to finish up and some days I feel a bit overwhelmed by it all. But the crazy thing is that every time I begin to freak out I start thinking about triathlon training. I basically have 12-14 weeks til I have to pass a milestone with my thesis committed before being given the big OK to write the book. And then another 12 weeks to write the book. First instinct...Freak_ out. But then I thought about training. Slightly dorky I know, but once I started to think in 12-14 week training chunks, it helped me to calm down.

I guess I figured that if I decided to do an Olympic distance triathlon...in 14 weeks from now (brrr...new England) I definitely could. I'm not planning an Oly in 14 or 12 weeks...that's be a silly time to do that as I'd be nuts-o with the milestone and freakishly cold water in New England, but you get my point. (maybe)...my point being that even though it doesn't sound like a lot of time, 12 or 14 weeks...it's lots of time to prepare for a sprint triathlon, an Olympic triathlon or other things. These are things that a few years ago the mystery of finishing these distances seemed almost out of reach, but I have recognized that by committing myself to the training and the daily-ness of it all I can succeed.

My 'training' at the moment is mountains of experiments...many which make my back hurt as I have to stand for hours on end...but I'll get there. And have a stronger back by the end of this week.

All is well...all is well.

Oh and the job location...about as far away as one can move from New England...California. Many have commented that I won't have seasons anymore...my thought: I've had my whole life with seasons...I got the point. :-P

outside running

I managed a 6 mile run today outside in the oh so nice 27 F weather. It is 'warming' up...hahaha. Oh well...it does look like this will be my last New England winter quite possibly ever...although one never knows what the future holds, so I won't say never. So I'm attempting to embrace the New England-ness of the cold and 'enjoy'...um right...sure...whatever.

but it was a great run...back to building a base

Metric

Metric...that is the answer to the mystery numbers on the bike...my 'power' meter has decided not to stay in imperial units and when ever you give it a chance (read: look the other way after you have programmed it with mph) it will blink at you show weird number reading and then go to km/h. Fun. I'd been dreaming of moving back to metric loving countries recently, maybe I'm getting prepped for it. ;-)

Road my trainer for 45mins as it was a nasty-windy-myuniversityisactuallyclosed-snowy-sort of day. I did get out of my PJs and did a lot of work on one of my graduation milestones, so today was a SUPER productive day. Loved it.

Things are looking up on many fronts. Many details to still figure out in the scheme of it all with work-life-job stuff-graduating....bla, bla, bla. But maybe one day I will find some balance.

so...much...going...on..need...to...breath...

GASP....

So today I finally unpacked my bags from my trip out West from last week. That's just about how insane things have been. The job front from the interview last week is all going in a nice and positive direction. Research is going in a nice and positive direction...what in the world is going on around here??? :-) I likey it though. Although i'm insanely busy and I get the feeling breathing will soon become optional. I actually tried making out an actual training schedule this week for the next few weeks. So far...doing OK. Not fab. But...breathing has becoming my number one focus lately. Although I am reminded that my number one tri goal this season is to graduate...so I guess I am on target :-)

on a training note....I had a weird bike trainer sesson. I have this 'fake' power meter(well that's what I call it)...From what I gather on how it calculates the Power and speed and I'm rather suspect about it it's actual values being accurate...but it gives me numbers and well...being of the science minded I like numbers most days. And if anything even if the numbers are 'fake', (as in not truely what would be going on while you are out on the road), you can at least compare the fake numbers and make some sort of comparison of how you are doing.

So...ok...i'm not super speedy when it comes to the bike. When i'm on the road my avg speed is typically 15-17mph. And in all truth the trainer comes in around that, usually a little on the lower end of things. But yesterday that was not the case. I have worked with the trainer to know enough that my speed is in the 14-17mph typically and i'm usually feeling it pretty much on the higher mph...so last night when I'm happily putting out numbers that look between 22-25mph...my thoughts...huh? I have NOT been doing much of well...much...and yet...er...is the thingy working?

Indoor tail wind?? It is a bit drafty in the old house i live :-)

Either way....lots of fun...i can deal with the new digits.

Chaos

Well the first week of my 'get back into training/tri' schedule did work, but the second week...not so much....BUT it wasn't due to the original issues that were plaguing me...it was due to a lot of Chaos that in-sued due to a sudden job opportunities/interviews. I tried to keep some training in order and some got done...some didn't. I know 20 mins a day isn't a lot to commit, but as this was my first monster interview (being flown somewhere ect, ect with crazy prep)...what can i say...ok no excuse, but live and learn.

I am currently WAAAAAAAAAAAAY across the country. Quite possibly about as far away as I can get while still staying in the lower 48 states. And the weather is DEFINTELY not New England.

This whole thing happened wicked fast and suddenly i'm out doing the job interview thing. It has gone well...and i will know more next week. It's a bit weird to be interviewing for a job i'd start this next fal, but that's how it goes with how grad school and everything. Anywho...it was good. The interviewing process was a lot of fun actually. And things do look favorable. Who know what will come of all of it...will I get the the job offers (as there were two jobs I was interviewing for) will i not...will I take a job offer here...or some where else. Time will tell...time will tell.

So, today i'll be hiking around with some friends and be headed back to MA tomorrow. Good fun. And come monday...i think that saddle is waiting for me. :-) Bring. it. on.

good, good, good

Good stuff going on.

1) I did some yoga this morning
2) I went to a yoga class BEFORE going in for work (i've been struggling with getting my AM work outs done which is better for me generally)
3) I have been asked to do a phone interview for a job i might be well suited for.
4) The bottom still hasn't fallen out of research...good.

I was talking to a friend about the saying 'back in the saddle' and I would like to say that's where I am with my training and balance on life. But in all truth it's more like I'm in the same corral as the horse-y. I'm not quite 'back in the saddle'. But one day at a time...one day at a time.

This all has been an interesting lesson as I've realized that some times in life when things in my life have blow to pieces (as they have in my life over the past few months) and my training has basically gone down the tubes, I've discovered that there are times when it is easy to just JUMP back into the mix of it all and into the ol' training routine. But at other times (like this experience for myself) I've learned that I just have to dust myself off and give myself some time to get back to the actual 'saddle' (i.e. my regular schedule)... Recently, I've been learning how to get back into a schedule piece by piece. I've had to learn how not to get uber frustrated with myself when I just don't have the energy to dedicate to focusing on jumping into the mix of training with my life/research making me crazy at the moment. It is possible to get back into the swing of my training little by little, and that has been a valuable lesson. I will get there. I know it. It may take some time, but hey that's OK. Sometimes the person in my life I am the hardest on is myself. I am learning how to give myself space when that is really what I need while working towards getting back into it all. In time...it will happen...i know it.

going positively

Amazing...really...really...amazing...things are going positively. I won't say things are going 'well' as we aren't there yet and have a long time to get to 'well' but things have taking a nice up swing.

1) I rode my trainer for 25 mins today even when I really...really...REALLY wanted not to as I got home at 930pm and hadn't had dinner yet. But i persevered. And i'm happier with those extra endorphins in me.

2) Today I expanded some of my experiments from Friday and guess what...i have this amazingly sharp curve that is SOOOOOOOOO reproducible I almost fell over. (no idea what it means yet...that's a ways to go...but i'll take reproducible curves with small error bars please, hence why things are just positive...cautiously so...ok i'm gun shy and I can't say things are going awesome when I fear it will all come crashing down the minute I think that...soooo I'll just say things are going positively.)

Keep crossing those fingers, toes, arms and legs. This girl might *actually* graduate WITH the project she started with. It was discussed last week bagging my project...(that's a horror movie for a 5th year graduate student or beyond...To TOTALLY scrap what you have been doing for 4 years...even when you are crazy and frustrated that it won't work, the thought seems like a freak show...but it doesn't look like it will come to that) .

Sweet...4 out of 5 days of exercise and lab actually not trying to kill me. Pinch me quick.

success

I managed 20 mins on the trainer today...yea...3 out of 4 days.

i'll cheer every chance I get :-)

Now tomorrow...plan is to try out the ol' morning work out at the gym.

bit by bit

So...unfortunately my big 'declaration' from thursday went bust on Friday. But Friday was a day that was uber insane and I just had to say 'OK'...it didn't happen let's move on. Due to a doctor's apt, a job prospect call during lunch and working rather late...i just had to give myself some grace and move forward. Now today...i was making EVERY excuse imaginable not to do something when it justifiable....and I over came my hurdle in the end....i succeeded in 20mins on the trainer. Tis good. I'll come around...i do know it. Life will right itself and I'll come around. Til then...

bit...by...bit

Pretty Please

They say "it's always darkest before the dawn". It's been rather dark lately in the lab. Infuriatingly so. BUT I think I see a ray of the dawn. I just made my first graph and it looks gooooooooooood. I still have to reproduce it and do a bunch of other things, but if the graph is reproducible then start singing "HERE COME'S THE SUN...dooodle doooodle....it's all right....do, do do, do do do, do, do do"

I'm holding my breath...not singing quite yet. It's a little early for that.

Fingers and toes crossed.

pieces

I am trying to pick up the pieces of my existence that have exploded catastrophically over the past 2 months. At the moment, I’m not so sure I can actually pick them up, I think I need to focus on getting up myself and then work on picking them up. This “explosion” has dramatically affected my well being in the realm of training, Hence over the past few weeks my actual workouts have been declining to a low/barely existent amount. SO…I have decided to go back to the basics and start there until I can get my head around life. For this week any thoughts of a schedule and amounts of whatever are tossed out the window. Everything else in my life is too much, I have decided that I can’t let my workouts be overwhelming too.

Here is the new plan that friend suggested: Just. Twenty. Minutes. That’s it…twenty minutes of: running, spinning, swimming, or walking. I’ve been debating whether or not yoga counts (I’m leaning towards a no…but maybe *this* week it’ll be a yes and then if I am still on a twenty minute focus as of next Thursday, yoga will still need to be done, but it won’t ‘count’ towards my twenty minutes).

Here’s the plan for the next 7 days (including today) 20 minutes of something. That’s all. No pressure. If I want to do more…I’m more than welcomed to. Less is not optional. I can mix things like running and walking if I feel like it.

Today was successful: 30:33 minutes of running. I found myself at the track in the middle of my run and although I know I don’t have the base to be doing any silly track repeats I had an itching to do at least one 400 for fun.

My 1x400 1:33

Who knows if I’d ever be able to string two of those together, but I enjoy dreaming that one day I might be able to. Dreams are encouraging.

Tomorrow’s plan: AM 20 min spin. If that doesn’t work…lunch 20 min walk.

Care and feeding

The care and feeding of a graduate student:

1)Always have enough coffee, chocolate, and tissues on hand for ANY given moment. You may need to use all three...and well if that's the case, better duck for cover.

2) We all know you *mean* the best when you ask "When are you going to graduate?"...but really, the way to show that graduate student you care for them...is to stay away from that silly question. Well that is if you value your life. (And any suggestions on how to tactfully respond to that question? My gut instinct is to say something rather nasty, some how i've kept it under wraps....at least for the moment. Tears usually get people to stop asking) And in all truth this question just rubs salt in the wounds...which there are a lot of. Be sensitive.

3) Asking "What are you going to do when you are done?" or "Aren't you supposed to go to (fill in the blank) conference?" falls into the same category as number two. Back off.

4) Random cheering, encouragement and chocolate (see number 1) is always appreciated.

5) Nothing is 'intutively obvious'...trust me.

6) Just because it falls into the 'you did this during your 'freshman year lab' category does not mean the answer is/should be easy or is non-trivial. Especially when no one can explain WHY it doesn't work. Funny..ha.ha.ha...SOOO not laughing. Saying things like this are actually mean.

7) Resistentialism is alive and well. There is even some scientific proof to back it up.

Resistentialism (ri-zis-TEN-shul-iz-um) noun
The theory that inanimate objects demonstrate hostile behavior against us.

8) Endurance is not just needed for a triathlon.

9) Actually grad school is more like water torture. drip....drip....drip. Little things add up.

10) A person's brain is finite. A grad student can only cram so much inside that little brain of his or hers. Don't be too offended if important information like your birthday got discarded. In all truth all that really means that the grad student has also lost LOADS of other crucial information like: their name, their phone number, their address, what day it is, when they showered last, when they ate last, or even your name. Be nice...one day they will regain that information...we all hope at least.

stuck

Sometimes in life you just find yourself stuck. I am stuck. And it seems that all the old 'tricks' to mitigate the sticky factor have stopped working. You know...exercise, chocolate, coffee, discussion, talk, more talk, really whatever. I've lost perspective. How does one gain perspective when one has lost perspective? I was told today that this...this...personal stuck-ness has to stop.

And my IT bands hurt like no body's business. I think it is related to the stuck-ness of the situation.

I am stuck.

Here we go again

It's another year. Maybe I should reflect on the last one...and look to the next one? Hmmm...not sure if I'm able to at the moment. I've thought about the upcoming year...resolutions...lalala. But as I think about them, they really, still come down to my four goals I posted at the beginning of Dec.
1) Graduate
2) Run faster
3) Weight loss
4) Swim more

I've added another one...more 'life' around me focused.

5) De-clutter my life.

I am a clutter bug. I need to re-organize, get rid of all the paper junk in my room, and somehow wade through my office space. Arg.

2007 looks to be shaping up as an interesting year. I might just finish the big book (aka stupid dissertation) by Aug...or Dec. Run a marathon in Oct. And a myriad of other things.

Weird... it's a new year. And as I start out this new year, I have realized I have just 13 short weeks til my first A/B race...a 1/2 marathon, on April 1st. Yikes...time to get back in the groove.

Books...Books...Books

Well Spence tagged me in an interesting Book game...Anyway, you are supposed to

1. Find the nearest book.
2. Name the book & the author.
3. Turn to page 123.
4. Go to the fifth sentence on the page. Copy out the next three sentences and post to your blog.
5. Tag three more folks.

The thing I found funny about this game was there really wasn't ONE nearest book to where I am(as I sit in my bed with my laptop on my lap)...it was more like 6 nearest books as I seem to 'nest' with books. It's a habit I started in undergrad I think, I tried out that learning by osmosis thing, since I frequently fell asleep while studying with my O-chem book (who didn't) or some other book. Anyway, as I tried to pick ONE book, i found that the mixture of all six was such a funny snapshot of me which gave me a smile. These were the six books in my 'nest' at the moment.
Marathoning for Mortals by John Bingham and Jenny Hadfield
Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer
She's such a Geek! : Women write about science technology and other nerdy stuff. Ed. Analee Newitz and Charlie Anders
The Bible NASB version
Contagion by Robin Cook

So I will pick Marathoning for Mortals as my book to pick 3 sentences from...as it deals with injury prevention and that is good for all of us.
"But through the experience, I cam to understand the value of physical therapy. After the race, I spent 2 months healing and 4 months building strength. Thanks to the help of Alex McKinna physical therapist, I walked away from the experience a better athlete and coach."


So...now I will tagg 'Zilla, Joe, and Matt

Have fun!