fifty eight

Yesterday morning I was lucky. I had Ken on one side of me and Kim on the other. And just a set of regular fins on, it was sprint week and there is nothing more that brings me dread than sprint day. I am an Irongirl for God's sake, not a sprinter. Anything worth anything to me is over four hours and more often than not well over five.

So when I hit the wall, was told my time and subtracted my five seconds because I was the second gal in the lane, I looked at Ken, really beginning to wonder about my math skills.

"Way to go Mary!" he said, as I subtracted five from 1:02 three more times, fifty eight. Fifty eight….. I asked Maureen next to me, if my math was correct. She approved.

"Dude." I said. And I will have to admit to you, it hurt like hell.

So I did it two more times just to make sure I wasn't stuck in a time warp like my friends on the island are in LOST. Just in case.

Sure enough, each time I hit the wall 1:02 minus five kept equaling fifty eight. Now two lanes over Mark was hitting 51. But I guess you can do that when you are a superstar.

I am going to credit my nutrition. HA HA! Not the hours of training I have been steadily putting in. The hours really haven't totaled up to be all that much.

Now the nutrition….. the nutrition is something that has been fascinating me on a very steady and daily basis. How so? The first thing: eating organically / raw / whole foods have never tasted so good in my whole-entire-life.

I am struggling with one thing: fat. I look at the nutrition content of some of the things I am making: ex: trail mix…. and I am having a coronary. Per serving, not so bad, but what if I eat more than one serving of my trail mix?

Contrary to what I have believed my entire life, and based my entire eating disorder on….. fat is not bad for you. Tell that to a girl who has lived "fat free" and vomited for 10 years of her life….. is a difficult thing to do. Convincing me that any fat is good …… my head understands it but my gut instinct still revolts. I am undoing an entire lifetime of thought patterns.

It is like instructing a swimmer who only breathes to the right, to breathe to the left. We can do it, it doesn’t hurt, it might benefit us, but it feels so strange.

All fats are not created equal and the kind of fat that a wholefood organic eating lifestyle will give you is the good kind. Omega 3. In a very small nutshell Omega 3 Fat helps to build cell membranes, reduces inflammation (which is found in ADD and Autism incidentally), and a bunch of other good things. I look at the good things, process them, understand them, and hope.

Now a whole food diet is not just rich (notice I did not say HIGH) in Omega 3 Fats, it's rich in nutrients and minerals. All which stimulate the body to produce the things it needs to to remain healthy and to repair itself. As I have been embarking on this journey I have never felt better.

The one addition to the schedule I am sticking to, is a daily meditation. Meditation? meditation. For 10 minutes every morning I sit and close my eyes, breathe and stay silent. That's all. That's all? Yeah, that's really all. It doesn't need to be any fancier than that!
As a new season approaches I have a few new approaches. To training, to nutrition, to my spirit. Let's see how it all comes together!