Three Legged Water Buffalo

The pinnacle of my exercise this weekend, in truth MY ONLY exercise this weekend, was a five-mile walk with my kids and our dog. Given his age (12 years), his leg situation (3 versus 4), and the heat (95ish degrees), the dog was very happy to take a break at our turn around spot and get in the creek. Typically he'll stay at the water's edge for a quick drink. Yesterday I nudged him farther into the water and then convinced him to lie down and relax. I think he could have stayed there for days.

The walk included the stroller and occasional use of the scooter too, but all in all it was a lovely time to spend chatting with my daughter and enjoying some exercise together.

She and I seem to go in waves for our communication. Some weeks we are pretty routine - "What's for dinner?" "Clean your room." "May I watch tv?" "Go play outside." Etc. Some weeks we find ourselves having richer conversations about "stuff". Lately, some of that "stuff" has been about girl drama, and some of it has been about sports. Tonight, those two subjects came to a major intersection as we attended the swim team awards and appreciation banquet. She was disappointed by the imbalance of recognition to some of the faster, stronger swimmers, some of whom also happen to be very "exclusive and rude" to use her descriptors. In order to break it down for me, she drew me a rough diagram of a typical swim meet.

She is not a super fast nor a super strong swimmer. It doesn't come naturally to her like it did for me. Soccer didn't come to her like it did for me. Riding a bike didn't come to her like it did for me. Climbing trees, doing cartwheels, you name it. Pretty much whatever sport I tried growing up came to me with very little effort. For her? Not so much. In the world of summer swim, if you aren't good, you can easily get left on the periphery - poolwise and socially. Tonight I finally told her that I was like one of the girls that she is so frustrated with. Our convo was pretty much like this:

Me: You know, I got those awards. Swimming was easy for me. I didn't have to try very hard, and I was the kid who received a handful of medals every summer anyway. I swam for two summer swim teams, and I received the "Swimmer of the Year" award on each. I swam in All Stars, and I am sure that there were people who were sick of hearing my name called during the awards banquets.

Her: Really?! So you were like (insert name here)? But you were nice of course.

Me: No. I wasn't very nice. I was probably exactly like her.

Her: What? But...

Me: The awards are great for about five minutes immediately after your name is called. After that, they cumulate in a room until you finally put them in a box, and when we bought this house they all went in the trash on the curb. Thinking your better than other people because you can get the awards, or simply restricting your social circle to include only the other people who receive them is a much bigger problem than not getting any.

Her: Wait. You were mean to kids???

Me: Yeah. I was. And of course I can remember a few girls who were older/faster than me and felt like they were mean to me too. But you know what? Now I could care less about how fast I swam, but I really wish that I'd been friendlier and more genuine in caring about people.

Her: Well, I AM a really nice person.

Me: Yes sweetheart, you are, and THAT is why I am so, so proud of you. It took me way too long to figure out just how important that is.

I very much want her to embrace the idea of a lifetime of wellness and physical activity. A big motivator for me to get moving is to be a better role model for her. As I work to do that, I continue to seek out motivation of my own.

Last week I wrote a short post called Your Turn. Far fewer people have read that post in contrast with the others, and I figure that can be attributed to one of two reasons. Either I posted it on a Friday evening and simply, no one was reading, OR, the title of the post scared people. (I am leaning towards believing the second.) BUT.... who doesn't want to click on "Three Legged Water Buffalo"?! And now since you're here, I will be very sneaky (or really not so sneaky)and try to convince you to help me out. Here's the deal-

I have mentioned before that there are a couple of blogs that I read regularly that inspire me and give me some great laughs. What I'm wondering about today is if any of you all would be willing to write about an experience that you've had this year - setting goals, overcoming obstacles, getting in the right frame of mind, hilarious episodes of misadventure, you know - stuff like that. There is no criteria - serious, funny, loaded with positivity, psychological ups and downs associated with health or exercise - I'm just curious to know more about how you're doing, and if you're comfortable, sharing it with the rest of the group. You can either go to the contact page and send it that way, zip me an email, or go to the Mama Gets Moving Facebook page and put it there. Alias optional. :-)

Just as I hope my words and stories provide some kind of guidance and support to my daughter, I can't say enough about how much guidance and support I receive from all of you.

Treadmill: Holy Schmoly

Given the heat and my lackadaisical mornings lately, I decided to give my brother-in-law a call and ask to use the treadmill again. Well, actually I was about to take an afternoon nap but Justin convinced me that I'd have more energy by exercising than by begging for sleep. He was (said in muffled undertones...) right. So I drove over and mentally prepared myself for a good run. I did my warm up walk and stretched and was ready to get moving.

Just as I was starting to run, I remembered reading a blog post recently by a very active runner. Not just a runner, but a marathoner. And not just a marathoner, but a really, REALLY fast marathoner. I can't even begin to figure out how I ended up on her blog in the first place, but I read a post about intervals and how important they are to her training. In my naivete (please excuse - no clue how to make accent marks on here), I figured, what the heck? So I decided to aim for three minutes at my normal pace (11:06/mi) flanked by one minute at a 10:00/mi. My guess is that my marathoning blogger friend probably walks to the bathroom in the middle of the night faster than my 11:06/mi pace but whatever. At least I had a plan.

So anyway, once again I found myself singing the bone song - if there is an official name I don't know it. You know, "the hip bone is connected to the... thigh bone" for the first several minutes of exercise. Justin tells me that I am several decades too young for this, but so far his adamant stance has done nothing to curb my aches and pains. So I'm starting to run and my hip is throbbing and then my knee starts hurting - blast, I remember that I haven't taken any ibuprophen today - so I spend the next few minutes contemplating physical therapy again but really wishing that there was a better/faster/easier fix. After my first mile my hip thankfully loosened up, and the next mile was actually fun in a weird and twisted way that I never thought I would enjoy.

But then came Holy Schmoly.

Cramps and I go way back. Toe cramps in the pool, Charlies in my legs from pregnancy and rowing, monthly frustrations, and occasionally I will get mild abdominal cramps when I run. Today was the grail that I never wanted to find. OMG. I tried. I'm not even lying or exaggerating. I really did try to keep going through it. It kicked my butt. After five minutes of trying to overcome it and keep running, I spent the next five minutes just trying to walk it off, breathe, stretch, poke and prod to make it go away. Finally, I was very tempted to turn off the machine and curl up on the floor but managed instead to walk VERY SLOWLY until I'd met my time goal.

Crazy interval training.

Twilighter 5K

Last night was the Crystal City Twilighter 5K, and I'm happy to say that overall I thought it went really well.

Here's a shot of me with Shelby and Rebecca before the race-

It's fuzzy, and we're standing in front of porta-johns, but the other two pictures are ... awful. There isn't any other way to say it. Shelby suggested we make a funny pose, and somehow that translated into flexing our muscles. I LOOK LIKE A FREAKING GARGANTUAN. You will not be seeing that picture. Such is my life as a big girl. Ho hum. So instead you get fuzzy johns. Feel the love.

As we walked around to warm up, I admitted to both of them that in every running event of my life thus far, I enter a period of doubt and wonderment. "Why am I doing this?" "I am not having fun." "Are people here seriously having fun, or do they just not really know how to have fun?" "Not one part of me is enjoying myself right now." "This is so not me. Next time I'm spending $35 to get my nails done." They laughed, partly agreed, and we went about our way.

The race itself started well. My knee felt funny for the first two minutes or so - it didn't hurt, it just felt slightly different than usual. After the initial start though everything was fine. Woohoo! Then, just after passing the one-mile mark, I started to have a weird overall feeling. For anyone not experiencing the heat these days, just know that it's been hot. HOT hot. As Rob said recently, it's been Africa hot. Listening to the advice from friends and loved ones, I drank lots of water before the race. Lots. Too much. Passing mile one I suddenly had the sensation that there was a real possibility I would throw up water everywhere, or that I needed to pee, or both. I got a little light headed (probably more driven by the panic that set in considering either of those options) and decided to walk for a bit as a preventative measure.

Another factor in the decision was my heartrate. Typically I've found that I can run for a while between 160-165, but that I can't go too far much beyond that range. Last night I kept finding myself around 180-184. The weeks of taking it easy have had their impact. In any event, I'd promised my husband that I would walk for part of the race (he asked for two-thirds, I conceded with about five minutes - three the first time and two after the two-mile mark) so even walking was taken in stride. Really I was just so happy to be there participating that I don't know if it would have mattered if I'd walked the whole thing. We also got to see Mary Ellen and her friend just after crossing the finish line, which was a double bonus. It was definitely a "more the merrier" moment.

Here's a photo taken after the race. Keep in mind that while we were really sweaty, we also took advantage of the wet sponges and misters to cool off.

Our treat? Chips and margaritas on the way home. Before getting into bed, I realized during the 5K I never once questioned what possessed me to register. I don't know if it was confessing my thoughts to them first, or if I actually did enjoy myself, but saints be praised I may have just had fun.

Totally unrelated (because for anyone who knows me that's how I operate), I have noticed a few things since my last post through conversations with friends.

#1 - While I have time to write on a Friday night, most of you aren't reading. Your lives are therefore obviously more exciting and action packed than mine.

#2 - I never did a good job explaining that there is a separate Mama Gets Moving Facebook page. I did that for a couple of reasons. The primary goal was to create a space that was focused on positive, healthy choices for anyone interested to share articles, blogs, good vibes, personal successes, etc. I also thought that some of my Facebook friends might start to feel like they'd had enough of me and my exercise kick and could then opt out of the day-to-day musings about the year, and then on top of all of that, I wanted to have a place to invite ANYONE to join me in this endeavor - whether I know them personally right now or not. So... "Like" it if you want to. :-)

#3 - I am really touched by how many of you are reading. It fills me up like a warm fuzzy attack. You rock.

Your Turn

So the news from the doctor was fabulous. The cartilage beneath my knee cap is swollen, (which he said often happens to serious athletes - heehee, because I AM a serious athlete) and that I need to take massive amounts of motrin, and stay off hills and zumba until it heals. Good deal. I picked up my race packet for tomorrow's 5K this morning and am all set to run. I don't care if I run or walk or even (gasp) jog. I'm just psyched to be able to go.

I have mentioned before that there are a couple of blogs that I read regularly that inspire me and give me some great laughts. What I'm wondering about today is if any of you all would be willing to write about an experience that you've had this year - setting goals, overcoming obstacles, getting in the right frame of mind, hilarious episodes of misadventure, you know - stuff like that. There is no criteria - serious, funny, loaded with positivity, psychological ups and downs associated with health or exercise - I'm just curious to know more about how you're doing, and if you're comfortable, sharing it with the rest of the group. You can either go to the contact page and send it that way, zip me an email, or go to the Mama Gets Moving Facebook page and put it there. Alias optional. :-)

No More Complaining

Who knew the magnets would be so popular?! So excited to think about them out and about in the world. You all rock. As for the mantra - imagine my delight when I came out and found Justin in MY t-shirt! Maybe I'll order him one in blue... maybe. He looks pretty good in it as is.

After my last post several of you told me that I was being too hard on myself and to take the time to heal and be happy that I'm having such a good year. Very sweet and appreciated comments all of them.

Baillie lovingly told me to suck it up because I'd only hurt one joint and to find something else to do. She had a good point.

SOOOOOO.... today I decided that I was going to take some time for my knee to heal, AND I grabbed the pull buoy at the pool and dragged my legs TWO MILES through the water. Who knows what my arms will feel like tomorrow. Frankly, who cares?! After my swim, I crashed on a pool chair and slept for an hour in the shade. Now I feel awesome, so I'll just deal with tomorrow when it comes.

Speaking of tomorrow, I have an appointment with my orthopedist to get his advice on the knee. Cross fingers. The 5K this Saturday is looking pretty slow, which is fine, but I REALLY want to do the triathlon on the 7th. As for other events, my event calendar is pretty open from September through November. If you're thinking of signing up for anything and want a companion, definitely mention it to me.

That is, on the condition that you're a reasonable type of person who isn't going to ask me to run a marathon or anything crazy like that. Sheesh.

Empty Update: Immobile Mama

As I mentioned before, I hurt my knee again at zumba last week and have still yet to feel like I can exercise with it. Even though it will only be one week tomorrow, I am slothing around the house in a funk and rampaging the kitchen. I wish I had this awesome post to put up today about how great everything is going and how I had an amazing bike ride followed by a killer run, but I confess I'm hanging in the drudgery of slackerville and starting to wallow. Does this happen to any of you?

Over the weekend my husband and I attended the adult party at our neighborhood pool. We haven't been able to go before due to scheduling conflicts, and I was pretty excited after hearing so much about it year after year from friends. It was fun - I don't know that it was $115 fun (tickets and babysitter) - but we had a good time. During the evening a friend told us about his frustrating workout pattern that equated to starting all over again everytime he missed a few weeks. Whether it was family emergencies, vacation, business or the like, if he was pulled off his routine within two or three weeks he felt like he was back at the beginning and starting all over again. My run portion of the triathlon was exactly like that. Given my cold and my knee, I'd already sloughed off several of my morning workouts. Now with another week down (minus the tri itself and the zumba class), I'm starting to really worry about the 5K this Saturday. I don't mean worry as in, "oh no, maybe I won't get my best time," but really just worry like, "oh crap, this is going to feel really junky again."

Ho hum.

I do have one fun thing to share though. My magnets have arrived! Soooooooooo.... If you're ever lucky enough to be driving behind my car, here's the view:

Let me know if you're desperate to have one.

Do it again!

Guess what?! I signed up for another triathlon! The same group (Tri It Now) that hosted the sprint triathlon on Sunday is hosting another one in just a couple of weeks, and I just registered. The distances are even shorter - 400yd swim, 8mi bike, and 1.8mi run. I really enjoyed the experience of the triathlon and have two obvious goals for this next one. #1 - I need to fight for a faster swim time by being more assertive in the pool, and #2 - I really want to improve the run. Since this run is so short and the bike shouldn't require as much, I am going to try my hardest to improve in that area.

Since trying to go easy on my knee and the onset of my cold last week, I've been slowing down in my overall weekly exercise. I foolishly went to zumba last night and have wretched my knee all over again (this morning I bought new shoes that will hopefully fix the problem. I've been going in my running shoes, and I know that they are designed for going forwards rather than twisting and turning all over the place). No more zumba for me until the shoes arrive. Until then I will stick to the morning runs, evening swims, and weekend rides. The Crystal City Twilighter 5K is in a week and a half - mid way between the triathlons - so for now, I need to get back into my morning run routine.

14.06

My first triathlon was a success! It was so much fun, and I can't wait to sign up for another. The distances were just right for me - 425 yard swim, 11.2 mile bike, & 2.6 mile run. Okay, truth be told, a .6 run would have been FABULOUS, but I went in to this knowing that I'm not a strong runner and really have made only slight progress between hating running and now mostly just disliking it. Well... going back a few posts, it is the hating jogging that I feel, and after that swim and bike, jogging was the ONLY option aside from walking, which I did some of here and there too. Actually, I was sort of trying to pace myself with another woman and used her to figure out whether or not my jog was faster than my speed walk. It was, but only marginally. But I'm all over the place....

Saturday afternoon I went to pick up my race packet and attend a meeting to hear all of the rules, get advice, and ask questions. It was helpful to be able to drive the course and see exactly where everything would be happening. Plus, I was super lucky because John and Mary Ellen were driving out at the same time so I was able to follow them and get insights from Mary Ellen who did the event last year, AND Ron, Dee Dee, Kayla and Janet were all there to attend the meeting with me with good humor and smiling faces. John and Mary Ellen invited me to ride with them in the morning, so Saturday night I took my bike over to get it in their van.
At 5:15 Sunday morning they pulled into my driveway, and we were off to the triathlon!

It was about an hour before the race was to start when we got there, and we were able to get a great bike rack on the outside of the transition area to set up all of our stuff. Here's a picture I took as I was starting to unload everything -

Janet and I went to get our timers (they have an official name, but I've totally forgotten what it was... basically a velcro anklet with a one-inch square box attached) and our numbers marked. During the run everyone has a visible number attached to their front, and during the bike there is a number on the front of the helmet as well as on the bike itself, but during the swim everything is left to the sharpie tatoos on both arms and the front of both thighs. Finally my age was written on the back of my right calf. Ugh. The crooked photo is Janet laughing about that while taking my picture.

Finally we were all corralled into to the pool area for the national anthem and the swim began. I was in the second wave of swimmers, which was awesome because I was able to just watch as the first wave took off. During my swim, there were at points four or five of us competing for space and sort of created a traffic jam. It was annoying, because we obviously kept slowing down, and I got kicked in the face by a guy trying to dolphin his way out of the pack. The worst part was that I wasn't aggressive at all about fighting for a spot and will definitely need to get over that next time. All in all I was really happy with how I felt coming out of the pool, got a really nice apology from another guy in the transition area, and got ready for the bike. I wasn't sure if I was going to change into bike shorts or just throw running shorts on over my suit, but I decided that since this was my first triathlon and I wasn't going to be good at the transitions anyway to just go for it. After one loop on the bike, I was so glad that I did! The bike was fun - I was delighted to see Meryl was there cheering for me in addition to Mary Ellen, Amy and Steve, and since we did three tight loops, I was able to pass the others and see how everyone was doing. Transition off the bike and into my running shorts and shoes was super easy, but honestly, that is when everything first got hard. I thought I was prepared for how my legs would feel, but instead of feeling all noodley, my quads were all wishy washy and my calves were super tight! Who knew?! Forget having a hard time running - I could barely walk! I wish the run was first and I could get it out of the way before hopping in the pool. So my run was more of a pathetic walk, jog, scamper, hobble... I don't know... I haven't seen any of the official photos yet. As I said to Meryl when I passed her, my positive self-talk was all used up by that point and I was not being a very good Girl on the Run. Thank goodness it wasn't any longer! The best part of the run was finishing it and seeing Jamie, Arianna, and Jonah as I was on my way to join the group.

I couldn't believe that they were there! How lucky am I to have such great friends?!

Finally, here's a shot of the five of us all together!

The times have been posted, and I am happy to report that I have PLENTY of room for improvement for next year. I was fourth out of eight for my age group and ended up with an 8:09 swim followed by 2:15 T1 (yes, putting bike shorts on wet legs did cost me there), 34:35 on the bike, 1:38 for T2, and 25:55 on the run for a total of 1:12:30.

Thanks again to everyone for all of the encouragement!!

So excited!

Tomorrow morning is the sprint triathlon, and I am so excited! Everyone has been so friendly and encouraging. My spirits were high as I left the beginners' clinic today. Now I have to hope for sleep!

Sick, Sick, Sick

Every now and again I walk around repeating phrases in a tone like Eloise. For anyone who isn't familiar with Eloise, she is an entitled six-year-old child living in the Plaza Hotel in NYC circa the 1950s.

She repeats herself to make a point and uses a strong accent to do so. Today, as Eloise, I say, "I am sick, sick, sick." This cold has been building over the past couple of days, and each day so far I have muddled through with the assumption that it would of course be the worst day of it. And that brings us to today - sick, sick, sick. In my Nyquil and otherwise self-medicated sleep this morning, I had a VERY real-feeling dream of being at the triathlon next weekend, although everything - the packet pickup, the race, random associated events - was happening simultaneously. I thought I had what I needed, somehow I couldn't track down my number, I went to ask for help and the women (I don't know why, but in the dream it was an all-female event) were very irritated with me because not only did I not know what I was doing, but I was new and in the way, and clearly not cut out to participate in their event. And then I woke up. So, on top of sick, sick, sick, I am nervous, nervous, nervous.