Some things don’t even seem real until they affect you or someone you care about. Sometimes, even though you keep up to date with the news and world events you still don’t realize how “true” they are because they are not happening right at your front door.
Well, reality struck yesterday. I have a girlfriend who lives in VA. Yesterday morning as I turned my cell phone on when I got to work; a text message popped on my screen. It was from her. It read something like this: “We are all together and safe. Our house was totaled by the tornado, so please keep us in your prayers” My heart broke right there and I immediately thought: Why? Why her and her family? I know they are safe and healthy and together; and that is the most important thing. But I can’t imagine the despair of having a house one minute and it being gone the next. Everything you own, GONE. Having to start from scratch all over again. It just makes my heart ache. I want to help, but I am not sure what to do. I have reached out to her to let her know she can call me whenever she needs me; and that is as much as I can do. That drives me crazy. The feeling of not being able to do more, wanting to be there by her side and not being able to because even though you would leave in a heartbeat, reality is that you have a family and a job you still need to attend to. And that makes me mad.
I am sorry this post is a downer, but I struggled with this all day yesterday and every time I think about it, it brings tears to my eyes and I can feel my heart break just a bit more.
This week is a rest week for me so there won’t be a lot to update, I am retesting on all 3 disciplines to see if I have made some kind of progress. I am seriously hoping that I have improved my swimming times and also that I am able to run at a higher HR threshold because that would mean being able to run faster on the same HR zone as before. I have done my swim test this morning and I am awaiting response from Coach. Running test is tomorrow and bike test is Saturday. I am single parenting this weekend because Todd (my husband) is volunteering at the Wachovia championship (golf) Thursday thru Sunday; so it will be a good chance for mother/daughter bonding time. I need to come up with some fun ideas on what to do. Any suggestions?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Mind games and pool courtesy
Well, another training week is almost over, and the good thing is that next week is a rest week!!! A rest week with almost 7 hours of training scheduled, lower intensity training, but 7 hours nonetheless. Yikes! I am looking forward to an “easier” week.
I had some good days and some other not so good days this week. Most of the “not so good ones” were related to swimming. I just can’t believe how hard it is to make progress on that discipline. I know that I am better from when I first started in multisport 2 years ago, but I still don’t consider myself good enough. It is a hard mind game that I keep playing with myself. It requires a lot of energy to keep pushing and not giving up with the hopes that I WILL get better and that I just need to keep trying. But you know how it is sometimes when you need to see some kind of improvement to keep motivated?? I think I have reached that point with swimming. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll keep swimming because I NEED to, but it would be nice to see that I am getting at least slightly better… so that I can face the swim workouts with a better mindset. I do try as hard as I can, and I will keep trying as hard or even harder; I just wish I could realize some improvement. That’s all.
Speaking of swimming… I got to the pool on Tuesday after work to do my “prescribed” 2600 yds and all the lanes were taken. I approached a woman that was swimming in one and asked if we could split the lane, she said: No problem. So I jumped in and started doing my stuff, sticking to my side. Since I don’t do flip turns, when I get to the end of the pool, I put a foot down, turn around and go again. That is when I saw that someone else had jumped in our lane and was swimming towards the other girl there. I think that by pure chance they did not collide head to head. The girl that was there when I got in (lets call her girl A) had a conversation with the other girl (Girl B) and explained to her that she could not just swim in the same side of the lane as her. If you were to look at girl B you would have thought she was an experienced swimmer. She was wearing a “fast looking” suit and the head cap you get at the local tri’s. But if she was an experienced swimmer, she would have known about pool courtesies. Girl A convinced her to switch lanes, not need to cram us all up in one lane when there are lanes that only have on person. So Girl B switches lanes. Girl A and I keep doing our stuff and when she is done she leaves the pool, leaving the lane all for myself. So I start swimming in the middle of it. No need to stick to the side since I am alone on it, right? I get to one end of the pool and as I am turning to go back I see Girl B swimming in my lane, in the middle of it! She didn’t even TELL me she was coming in; she didn’t even ask me if she could join in. I would have said yes! She continues to do her thing, not minding my presence and I get pissed off. I stand on her way at the end of the pool to prevent her from doing a flip turn. I proceed to tell her that I want to split the lane, not circle swim. She argues with me. At this point I am getting really upset. I simply said: I do not want to circle swim, we are splitting the lane. After that I put my goggles back on and kept swimming. I think I kind of intimidated her because maybe 5 minutes after that she left. I know that the way I acted was not the most polite of all, but she could have caused us to hurt ourselves. All it would have taken was for her to ASK me, or even call my attention before she jumped in.
Rude people piss me off.
On Wednesday I had a nice ride outside. Only bad thing was that traffic. That caused a lot of stop and go. A lot of clipping and unclipping. I almost fell down a couple of times, but I was able to keep my balance and go. I think the kind of pedals I chose were not the best ones. After being used to the ability of clipping on either side, this new thing is hard work! When and if I get a tri bike I will think about getting different pedals and maybe even different shoes. Don’t tell my husband though since I just got these pedals and shoes :-)
Thursday was Masters Swim again. Not a pleasant experience and definitely the worst day of the week.
Today I got up early and did my scheduled brick. Rode the bike on my trainer and then ran outside. I felt good running! I had not felt this good on my feet in a while. I felt light and speedy (even though I was not really going fast... still training in zone 2) and could have kept going for hours.
We are off to MN this weekend to visit family. It will be a long and fun weekend. Lots of stuff planned for the short two days we will be there. I anticipate getting home on Sunday and being exhausted. I am looking forward to running alongside the Mississippi river tomorrow morning, but wouldn’t you know it? After being beautiful up there for the entire week, tomorrow it is forecasted to be cold and rainy… I guess I will have to pack my winter gear. See ya when I get back.
I had some good days and some other not so good days this week. Most of the “not so good ones” were related to swimming. I just can’t believe how hard it is to make progress on that discipline. I know that I am better from when I first started in multisport 2 years ago, but I still don’t consider myself good enough. It is a hard mind game that I keep playing with myself. It requires a lot of energy to keep pushing and not giving up with the hopes that I WILL get better and that I just need to keep trying. But you know how it is sometimes when you need to see some kind of improvement to keep motivated?? I think I have reached that point with swimming. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll keep swimming because I NEED to, but it would be nice to see that I am getting at least slightly better… so that I can face the swim workouts with a better mindset. I do try as hard as I can, and I will keep trying as hard or even harder; I just wish I could realize some improvement. That’s all.
Speaking of swimming… I got to the pool on Tuesday after work to do my “prescribed” 2600 yds and all the lanes were taken. I approached a woman that was swimming in one and asked if we could split the lane, she said: No problem. So I jumped in and started doing my stuff, sticking to my side. Since I don’t do flip turns, when I get to the end of the pool, I put a foot down, turn around and go again. That is when I saw that someone else had jumped in our lane and was swimming towards the other girl there. I think that by pure chance they did not collide head to head. The girl that was there when I got in (lets call her girl A) had a conversation with the other girl (Girl B) and explained to her that she could not just swim in the same side of the lane as her. If you were to look at girl B you would have thought she was an experienced swimmer. She was wearing a “fast looking” suit and the head cap you get at the local tri’s. But if she was an experienced swimmer, she would have known about pool courtesies. Girl A convinced her to switch lanes, not need to cram us all up in one lane when there are lanes that only have on person. So Girl B switches lanes. Girl A and I keep doing our stuff and when she is done she leaves the pool, leaving the lane all for myself. So I start swimming in the middle of it. No need to stick to the side since I am alone on it, right? I get to one end of the pool and as I am turning to go back I see Girl B swimming in my lane, in the middle of it! She didn’t even TELL me she was coming in; she didn’t even ask me if she could join in. I would have said yes! She continues to do her thing, not minding my presence and I get pissed off. I stand on her way at the end of the pool to prevent her from doing a flip turn. I proceed to tell her that I want to split the lane, not circle swim. She argues with me. At this point I am getting really upset. I simply said: I do not want to circle swim, we are splitting the lane. After that I put my goggles back on and kept swimming. I think I kind of intimidated her because maybe 5 minutes after that she left. I know that the way I acted was not the most polite of all, but she could have caused us to hurt ourselves. All it would have taken was for her to ASK me, or even call my attention before she jumped in.
Rude people piss me off.
On Wednesday I had a nice ride outside. Only bad thing was that traffic. That caused a lot of stop and go. A lot of clipping and unclipping. I almost fell down a couple of times, but I was able to keep my balance and go. I think the kind of pedals I chose were not the best ones. After being used to the ability of clipping on either side, this new thing is hard work! When and if I get a tri bike I will think about getting different pedals and maybe even different shoes. Don’t tell my husband though since I just got these pedals and shoes :-)
Thursday was Masters Swim again. Not a pleasant experience and definitely the worst day of the week.
Today I got up early and did my scheduled brick. Rode the bike on my trainer and then ran outside. I felt good running! I had not felt this good on my feet in a while. I felt light and speedy (even though I was not really going fast... still training in zone 2) and could have kept going for hours.
We are off to MN this weekend to visit family. It will be a long and fun weekend. Lots of stuff planned for the short two days we will be there. I anticipate getting home on Sunday and being exhausted. I am looking forward to running alongside the Mississippi river tomorrow morning, but wouldn’t you know it? After being beautiful up there for the entire week, tomorrow it is forecasted to be cold and rainy… I guess I will have to pack my winter gear. See ya when I get back.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
The decision has been made
After much thought, and I mean, months of going back and forth about this. My husband and I have decided that we are not going to have any more children. We have one beautiful, strong willed, sweet little girl and as it stand right now that is the perfect family for us.
I can't tell you how this decision has been hunting me for the past couple of months. At the end of last season I was super ready to get pregnant and become a mom again. It didn't happen as I had wished for it to happen and I literally put my life on hold. I drove myself crazy. I was going to sit out this season and not race, maybe train very slightly, just for the chance of maybe getting pregnant. Not only was I making myself miserable, everyone around me was feeling it too. So I took a change in direction and decided to sign up with Liz for coaching. And then it hit me.
When I was pregnant with Megan I gained 50 lbs. Yes, you read correctly, 50 lbs. It took me a very long time to lose the extra weight. As a matter of fact, if we compare what I weighted pre-pregnancy to what I weight now, I am still 5 lbs "overweight". I do not have the best self esteem when it comes to my body. I know it can endure things, childbirth, 1/2 marathons and tri's are proof that I have a strong body; but I don't necessarily like the way it look all the time. Growing up I was always "dieting" as I had a tendency of being on the "chubby" side. I was never fat, but I was never skinny. So this has a very big psychological background. Today, for the first time in almost 4 years I like the way I look. When I look in the mirror I am not disgusted by who/what stares back at me. And that my friends, is huge.
The second reason behind this decision is my family. I am from South America, and everybody I knew up until I turned 26, when I moved to the US, still lives there. My best friends, my parents, my siblings. Everybody. And I miss them. And I only get to see them maybe once a year. Traveling is expensive and if the bill is high for 3 people I don't even want to think of what it is going to be like for 4. There is no way we could afford to go every year, or maybe every other year. And that is a long time. I know I am the one that decided to move here, and I do not regret that decision a single bit; but I still miss them and want to see them as much as possible.
We also don't think we would be good parents to 2 children. We both work full time and have our hobbies. He golfs and I train/race. These hobbies are the ones that keep us "grounded", they're our "me" time. These hobbies help us be better people, better parents. They take our minds out of our daily worries at least for a little while. But the hobbies take up time. And maybe for selfish reasons, I don't think we are ready to give them up yet.
I still believe this is the right thing to do for us at this time. We have not set anything in stone. We have not taken any drastic measures to prevent a pregnancy. Still the decision makes me feel guilty. Megan will be an only child. The statement hurts my heart and at the same time makes me feel relieved. WOW.
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