Weeks like this! (aka I'm doing tris again)

Sometimes you have a week that goes like this:

On Saturday, you are standing at a wedding, telling people you haven't seen in a while that, oh no, you aren't training for any tris lately, you've been working a lot, and that was a whole lot of stress in your life.  These days you're just enjoying life and the occasional barre class, thankyouverymuch.  Maybe you'll do a 5k.

On Monday, you're in Bermuda.  It's beautiful, there's a beach and a pool, and you decide to do absolutely zero workouts.  You snorkel one day, and it's the most swimming you've done in almost two years.  At first when you put the flippers on, you zoom around until your  boyfriend pops up to exclaim, "Hey, you aren't even snorkeling, you're just swimming!  Slow down or you'll miss all the fish."  He's a snorkeling nerd, but he's right.  You were enjoying the nearly-forgotten feel of cutting through water.

On Wednesday, you're on the plane home.  For the first half of the flight, you read a Runner's World that has a pretty awesome 5k training plan in it.  OMG, you think, I am so smart and so prescient, when I was telling Ruth and Becky that I'd do a 5k do you think I knew the future?  Can champagne make you psychic?  Anyway, you figure if you start running for a few weeks, you can jump into the training plan and do some cross country races in the fall, too.  It sounds good.

Later on Wednesday, you see an old tri coach's Facebook post.  You read it.  It's a link to an incredibly moving organization, for whom he is fundraising and competing in the New York City Tri.  The tri is on July 16th.  It starts outside your door.  It's your favorite race.  And he has another spot on the team.  You reply with just a one-emoji answer - the raised hand.

And that's it.  In the span of a few days, I came back to triathlons.  I had felt good about not doing them and felt bad about not doing them.  I'd missed them and also remarked at how little I missed them.  But when I told Ben I wanted in, my heart felt light.  I was thrilled to the tips of my toes, eager to take on this absurd challenge (fundraising and getting ready for the tri in *8 weeks*).  I know, too, that I can't go too beserk with expectations or pressure - I have 8 weeks from eating fries on the beach to jumping in the Hudson, so I just have to try and:

• have fun
• raise money for a good cause
• get to the starting line
• get to the finish line
• and remember that this is a privilege.

Should be easy, right?  

Rushing the Barre Sorority

I wrote this post back in February.  February!  It's now late September.  Anyway, here it is....

Desperate times called for desperate measures.  

I got off of my 15 pills/day treatment regimen for a nasty bacterial infection in my GI tract on 11/22.  I consider that excellent timing, since it meant that I was finally feeling human right before the holidays.  And you know what humans do?  

Eat cookies.  Lots of cookies.  And maybe some wine?

Now, my lovely doctors who guided me to eat as many “nutrient dense” (hi, bone broth) foods as possible may find this approach disturbing, but I was intentionally lax with any sort of nutritional strategy during the month of December.  My argument is that one can only live on quinoa and good intentions for so long. However, I acknowledge I may have delayed my own healing process a tad.  I don’t even care, because coming back from months of illness was as much a spiritual journey for me as it was a physical one.  So I ate the cookies.

And my abs looked like it.  

Though I’ve never been one to weigh myself, I knew I was not in great shape.  And it wasn’t even in terms of just strength, or fitness - it was also in terms of energy and stamina on little things like, oh you know, the stairs, hauling laundry, running around with the dog.  I felt blah.  

That being said, as a runner and triathlete I’ve had many nagging injuries that all seemed to come from the same root cause: weak core, weak hips, tight quads.  If I was going to step away from the world of competitive triathlons, I figured I might as well take the time to address my underlying issues.  

And then there was the matter of vanity.  I simply wanted my body to look fit again.  

I’d heard so many friends talk about barre classes, but they just never fit into my swim/bike/run lifestyle, so I’d never been.  That didn’t stop me from signing up for a $150 new client special at Pure Barre, though.  Go big or go home.

I took my first class on 12/31 and let’s just say I did not exactly shine bright like a diamond.  I had to take a lot of breaks.  A LOT of breaks.  I could hold a plank for no more than 10 seconds, and the class’s thigh work was nearly impossible. This was a demoralizing realization for someone whose quads were crushing hills on 60 mile bike rides only a few months earlier, but I digress.

Though the first class was very hard and not fun, I went back. And back again. I ended up taking about 15 classes in 30 days.  I showed up at that barre, in a room full of bendier and fitter women, who all seemed younger than me somehow.  I showed up 3-5 times a week. I showed up in my cutest Lululemon and highest ponytail and chipperest smile. I faked it like I was rushing a sorority.  I got better at planks.

And at the end of the month, I was stronger.  I did not look like a supermodel or feel instantly fit again.  But that’s okay.  I got out the door, I did something new, and got back in the game….

And I did manage to get better at those planks.