I took an exam on the GI system on Thursday, my final Pathophysiology exam. The core of the exam focused on the physiology of GI illness, diarrhea, vomiting, the CTZ center. Which was incredibly ironic that I began a full fledged session of Montezuma's Revenge on Friday.
Conversion disorder?
I was convinced it was..... until I walked in the house and found the sub ten doode with the barf bucket in hand. Whew, I thought. I am not crazy (shut up).
When I did make it to work last night for my weekly night shift (which I do have to add is a whole lotta fun when you work with some pretty amazing people) the gasp was not about how horrible I looked but for the lack of coffee in my hand. Then it was to me.
Two hours later I was sent home. You are not allowed to be sick when you are a pediatric emergency nurse. But when you are, show up and it will be taken care of.
Which brings me to this morning and the best meal I have ever eaten in my life: two pieces of toast, a banana and a Diet Pepsi. (I don't even drink Diet Pepsi). It was Thanksgiving all over again! Heaven!
Today is going much better for me. Seems Montezuma/conversion disorder has claimed a new victim. In a house where we are rarely sick it's big news when we are. I of course fear what every mother fears..... our son getting sick. With all of his issues and experiences I can count on one hand how many times he has thrown up in his nine years...... twice. He's also had one ear infection. I would have traded open heart surgery for a few rounds of puke, but beggars can't be choosers.
Cross our fingers he escapes the revenge.
Excitedly I logged into my QT2 account as soon as I woke up and felt nauseous again. fourteen hours on tap including a 3 hour ride on Thursday. (note to self: reassemble bike tonight). Holy cow, I thought.
No rest for the wicked..... or should I say for those who have things to do and places to be in 2010. If I had just read that one someone else's blog I would have had a heyday! Too much volume! She will be injured by January! What the HECK!
I have to remember who my coach is. I have to remember his track record. I have to remember that this is the coach I came to to bring me to an entirely new level. I am willing to go out on the limb, and go to the places I have never gone, and do the things I have never done.
Fourteen easy hours...... fourteen I shall then do. I am meeting with Jesse this evening and then I will have our goals, aspirations and dreams.
While I might be existing on toast and bananas for today....... I know that come Sunday I will be back to my old self, my old strength, my bike seat and my new running form.
Hope you are all ready, because this year is going to be great! Of course!
Through the past year I have revolutionized my nutrition. The struggle as an athlete and coach even was how to balance nutrition while distance training and keep on keeping on. Last January I began to delve into the Paleo diet and through my work with the Wizard and QT2 I came to the Core Diet. The Core Diet is often mistaken for Atkins to those who don't know it well.
The Core Diet is pretty much the same as Paleo for Athletes, with the exception that it has better guidelines for balancing weight loss with distance training. We made vast improvements in my body composition throughout the past 6 months. It's tricky because body composition is not truly measured in pounds as it is in body fat. For me that means calipers. While they do have a margin of error they are much more reliable than a..... scale. A scale? really? You step on a scale and it tells you how much body fat you have? Read the directions on how it is done..... please. Then use some common sense.
Body composition is important in triathlon. The lighter you are the faster you can go, but with great exception. Many athletes fall into the lighter is better and then end up with significant injury, most commonly in the form of stress fractures.
Many athletes also believe that lighter right now is faster forever.
Women should aim for a body fat percentage of 12-14%, and that 12% should be on race day. Not before. Men.... 5-7% and again, that 7%.... on your A race day. Getting down to that lower range and even below it in December for a race that is 7 months away will guarantee you this:
1. Illness 2. Injury.
Your body needs fat to perform certain functions. Cell metabolism for one. The low fat diets of the nineties are out, the focus is now on whole foods, real foods, I think that's a great thing for our American culture.
In an Ironman race 10 pounds is said to be good for 10 minutes off of your time. Of course this excites me as I am 15 pounds lighter than when I did my 10:58 at IMFL in 07. I believe I have about 15-20 to go, but we will allow my latest body composition analysis determine that.
However if you don't have 10 pounds to lose..... then think of trying to lose that additional 10 as time added to your time. I honestly believe that it works inversely. So save yourself the time and the heartache. Be healthy, get your composition analysed by something other than your $150 scale.
A few rules on the core diet are ones easily incorporated into any lifestyle:
1. Drink 80 ounces of water every day (That's 2.5 of those Nalgene bottles) 2. Eat four fruits per day 4. Eat four veggies per day 5. Eat 6 time per day.
The biggest complaint I hear with nutrition is time. No one has time to devote to planning meals or preparing meals. But we all have time to plan our weeks and our training. Be just as serious about your nutrition then! I spend about an hour on Sundays cooking, chopping, preparing meals for the week. I store them in small Glad Lock containers and then when the time comes my preparation time is minimal.
I remember feeling a significant difference in how I felt after just 2 weeks eating in the Core. Energy levels soared, I felt cleaner, I felt really good. I was no longer relying on bread and bagels for my carbohydrates, I was relying on much healthier sources like fruits and vegetables.
Many people thing that because you are not eating bread and bagels that this is Atkins. Not so. It's a tough thing to give that stuff up, especially if you are a swimmer like me and Saturday mornings have always meant swim practice then pancakes!
Take a look at your fruits and veggies. Look at how much you can get from those sources. There is certainly a time and place for the higher carbohydrate foods, those we call workout windows and I will outline those another day.
The biggest focus when eating in the Core is healthy nutrition. I think of all of the years my body was starved of the micronutrients that it needed. Especially with the health issues I have dealt with in the past 2 years. My body soaks that stuff up now and I feel that difference.
The Wizard is pretty strict on making sure you eat enough fat, enough vitamins, he reminds us that we lose health when we aim too low. He aims for 0.5-1 pound of weight loss per week, which is easy to do in a world when you aer taught that you can lose 3-6 pounds by drinking 3 shakes a day.........
Now is the best time to begin working on the nutrition front. I don't enjoy the treats that the holidays bring. Growing up with an eating disorder this was the worst time of year for me. I am happiest when I avoid it. I am happiest when instead I try new fruits and vegetables. I feel good at the end of the day. I don't' feel like I have the sugar induced false high.
So begin establishing those habits now. Good habits. Healthy habits. The water, the fruits and the vegetables. Find out what your body composition is and then begin upon a long term plan to getting it to where it should be by race day, remembering that on race day it can be at its lowest, afterwards you add a few pounds.
It's wonderful to be fast. There will be no such thing as fast if you are a woman with 8% body fat and a stress fracture though, as you watch from the sidelines.
Here is a picture one of my athletes got in Clearwater...... there's no age group drafting there!
What a night. I looked up at my husband as I hung my head over the proverbial barf bucket and I made sure to thank him. I remember feeling the same way when I was in labor. We had gotten to the hospital for an induction, and they placed "the gel" in me at 4pm. I sent him out for a run, we weren't having the official induction until 7am the next morning, have fun honey!
2 hours later he came back to me sitting on the edge of the bed sobbing, snot running from my nose in full on labor, getting an epidural. My water broke and I sobbed "I'm incontinent" (nurse speak). I swear it's times like those when you realize the true meaning of love.
This morning Luc was reassuring, as he promised me he would straighten things out with Santa:
"Mom I will tell Santa that you didn't sleep because you were sick, not because you were being bad."
Whew.
The big meeting with Jesse.... aka: The Wizard.... is tomorrow. Between now and then I have a few items of homework: running form video and power test on the bike. As long as the re hydration plan works then that power test will be on. The run video will take just a few minutes. I am most excited about this part. While I have worked really hard on my running paces and running zones.... I have never had a coach who has walked me through the process of working on running form.
What I hope to do one year from now is show your the before and after video, the before and after times, and the upward slope of improvement. I am planning on taping my running on a regular basis. Next month when I do make that trip to Boston I will be able to work with him in person on it. It's so exciting when there is room for improvement. I am heading into my best endurance years, and I still have room to improve things on the swim, bike and run.
Opportunity is abundant! That's what I hope to pass on to you.
After our meeting I will let you know about our goals on all fronts, the races we plan on hitting and what tips I was given for my running form. I might even post the video so you can see that.
Remember the swim helmet? for those of you new around here the swim helmet is a joke, no I do not really swim with a helmet on! Grimm brought it to my first practice back after the injury and I wore it as a joke. Although there seems to be a market for this thing during the swim at IMLP, which incidentally will have 400 more people in it this year!
It felt good to slide into the water. Compared to the water I had swum in the previous day this was much colder. At Masters it always is. The usual faces greeted me, coming back to the pool after my 2 weeks break was a lot like coming home from vacation. Well, I just did!!!!
I was born a swimmer, I swam in college and nothing, nothing replaces the feeling of those first thousand yards in the pool after a break. I love to re feel the catch, the throw, the breath, the sound of nothing but water all around me. Coach threw tennis balls in the water this morning and I knew it would be awesome. She gives us the best drills. Tennis balls are one of the best tools for head positioning, fist swimming, and Mark even taught me how to juggle. I moved to lane 1 yesterday to even out the lanes and I think it will be my permanent lane this year. Lanes 1 and 2 swim together, but lane 1 seems to fit me well right now. I am in need of some swimming change. After I ended my collegiate swimming career I began to swim by 2 rules: no more fly and I will breathe to my right. Yesterday I brought my fly out of retirement. Trust me when you have spent years of your life swimming 10,000 yards a day, most of that fly, you deserve to retire it for a good 10 years. One of the sets we were given instructed us to breathe to our non preferred side. The beautiful thing about my swim team is that we don't stick a workout on a wall and have at it. Lorie coaches form the deck, set by set. At any given moment she's in your face and she holds nothing back. If you are swimming like sh*t she says those exact words. That's what I love abut her. She's damn honest. Out of fear I began to breathe to my non preferred side. It felt like writing with my feet. As I swam that set I thought about how we are analyzing my running and my cycling form the bottom up. With a good long season ahead of me the focus is high on biomechanics right now. Why not with my swimming? I am a much much better swimmer than I train to be. I don't work hard at all to swim 28-30 in a 70.3 race. Not at all. It's embarrassing because with my background all I have to do is put froth some effort and bam, there it will be. As we move towards this new season with new goals...... and I have promised before..... but I will promise again. Some effort in the pool. I am swimming fly again, I am breathing to the left. I am getting out of my box of swimming safety. Because it will take beginning from the bottom to reach what I have aimed to reach in 2010. As I look down the path of 2010 I realize that right now I am in a great spot. We start on Monday and that gives me almost a full year. My big A plus race is at the end, many people's is in the middle. That gives me the luxury of time. I am studying my running homework, the powercranks are on their way, the power meter is being charged...... I have a meeting with Jesse this weekend. Next week we do run form analysis. (I did have to postpone my trip to Boston until Jan 23rd because I am getting a new car! Exciting!) Power test, body composition analysis, all this weekend. I am loving what I am doing so far. My legs are sore in the good way kind of soreness. I am ready to step out of the box, be taught something new, and in the pool...... find something old.
Throughout my life I have been inspired by some pretty amazing people. It's rarely the person who wins the race, more often than not it is one of the true heroes of life that has the ability to bring me to my knees, make me look up at the sky and truly believe that anything in this world is possible.
Here is our friend Rudy Garcia, as he walked past us at Ironman Arizona. If you have been in this sport long enough you remember when we was on the cover of Road Runner Sports as an 11 or 12 year old kid, promoting the Challenged Athletes Foundation.
If you don't know the story of Rudy, the 2 minute synapses is this: as a kid he was wheelchair bound. Essentially he asked for his legs to be amputated so he could get on with his life....of course there is much more detail, but that's the jist. At five years old he had the foresight to say..... enough of this. Click here for a much better recap of Rudy's life.
At the 2009 Ironman Arizona event Rudy became the first double leg above the knee amputee to complete the Ironman. When he walked by us..... Luc took notice. He was fascinated by this kid who had these amazing legs. We watched as Rudy checked in.
I have had the fortune of being at some events with Rudy, like the 70.3 Ironman World Champs in 2006. I remember watching him run into the water on his stumps and kicking the asses of some of the best swimmers in that field might I add.
I wanted Luc to watch him, to stare at him. Luc is not new to being around wheelchairs and walkers and disabilities. He was in a wheelchair and used a walker himself. He attended a pre school with children who had CP.
What was different..... was that this kid with the amazing legs.... was doing the Ironman. Luc never had seen that before. I watched as that scenario was absorbed by Luc. Luc is no stranger to adversity. If you have been reading long enough you know the struggles we have endured over the past several years with an education system set up that's against children like Luc. You remember the fight and the meetings and the phone calls.
How on earth Luc managed to wake up every single day with a smile on his face, and walked into a school where all he met all day was doom.... is beyond me.
It's now December, and Luc has been in his new school since May of last year. He's an entirely new kid. He has close friends. I have a notebook that he comes home with every single day with a synapses form his teacher of how the day went. Great day, worked hard today, those kinds of comments are on every single page.
Last year we got a phone call every single day. By this time of last year I had been at the "round table" at least four times. Luc faced every school day of 2009 being told by teachers that he would never fit in, that he was bad...... and as you remember we yanked him out and homeschooled him in March.
Luc inspires me. Throughout his nine years he has faced things many adults don't even comprehend. Open heart surgery to name the biggest. He wakes up every single day knowing that it is a brand new day. Excited to go to school.
He's in a wonderful school that understands him. He's in an environment where he is learning, excelling. He goes to tech class and has made a fire truck and a napkin holder....... can you imagine in his previous school .... him handling a saw?
He does in this one.
And no one has gotten hurt.
He won the mile in the pumpkin run that his school held. He joined the chorus, in fact his first concert is next week!
Luc is a member of USA Triathlon, and he's a veteran at the kid's races. Because of balance issues he still bikes on training wheels, but he loves to be in the game. As triathlete parents we don't want to push him into this sport, but when he asks us to race.... we support him. We aren't the parents in transition who scream at their kid to hurry. Luc knows how to change his own shoes, put on his own helmet. Kids need to be encouraged, not hollered at to win.
He's got his own little collection of finisher's medals, T shirts, swim caps. In Arizona he did the mile Iron Kids run, as shown above.
Luc inspires me because he has spent nine years being told by the education system that he can't, while the athletic system has told him he can. That's powerful. Percentage wise he has spent more time in the educational system than he has on the field and still, despite all of that he smiles, he is positive. We are told that as parents we have much to do with that.
I hope so.
In Arizona 1,600 children competed in the Iron Kids mile run. It was the best organized race I have ever seen. Kids were lined up by grade and each grade was a wave that began about 1 minute apart form the next.
As I stood there at the finish line waiting, tears filled my eyes as I watched the children run through the finisher's arch, the same one used for the Ironman. The crowd was gigantic and they were screaming. It was like each child had their day in the sun. Their 15 minutes.
Afterwards Luc told me that as he was runnign down the finisher's chute he was crying. He told me this:
"Mom everyone was cheering for us. I felt so special!"
Because my son you are special. You are very special. You have been given some gifts that other children have not. What some might call special needs I like to call gifts.
As Luc watched Rudy walk around in transition and rack his bike, he was speechless. He asked me how Rudy swims, how Rudy bikes, and how Rudy runs. I explained to him how Rudy did it and he smiled.
"He's my hero mom." He told me.
"Mine too." I told him.
We all face challenges. My father taught me that it's not the challenge that you face, it's what you choose to do with it. You can let it beat you down or you can use it to help you become stronger.
"You have faced your share of challenges Mar...." one of my close friends recently reminded me, "I think that's where Luc learns it from." I thought back to my lifetime of challenges. I guess when you put it into a timeline and a list it seems like a lot. I am no different from any of you.
My inspiration is Luc. I wonder if he will ever understand that.
Below is an incredible video that one of my athletes sent me. She instructed me to grab a Kleenex before I watched this, and I think you should do the same.
The off season always brings triathletes to yoga. We believe we need to fins something to shut off the mind, give us something to relax, stretch a bit and unwind. If that's what you need....
You will not like my yoga class.
If what you are looking for is something to turn off your brain, not sit still, sweat more than you ever have in your entire life, develop your core strength more effectively than a TRX will, move for 75 minutes, be challenged in ways you never thoughts possible while listening to Eel, Jack Johnson, Michael Franti, Green Day, Krishna Das and sometimes I even threaten Michael Jackson......
There are a million different styles of yoga. If you like to be still there is a style for that. If you like rigidity, there is a style for that. Baptiste Power Vinyasa is what I call the freestyle yoga. Your poses and mine.... they will look different. We've got different bodies. It's open to interpretation, it's open to really jacking up the intensity and at the same time bringing it waaay down. It's what you need. It's not keeping up with an instructor..... in fact as an instructor......
I don't do the class with you. I roam around the room and lead you through it verbally.
WTF? I don't show you the moves?
No. That's what our basics class is for. Besides...... what I do or don't do on my mat has zero to do with you. I am probably your most inflexible yoga teacher, but what does that matter? Don't come to your mat looking to copy my routine, look to develop your own.
There aren't even mirrors in our studio.
WTF? How the hell will I know if I am doing the poses right?
You feel it. Do you look in the mirror every single time you swim bike and run? No. You feel. That's exactly what you learn to do on your mat. As I roam the room I even make sure you are in the right place.
In our studio you don't turn off the brain by sitting still and sitting quiet. You turn off the brain by moving and sweating and breathing and listening to music. By doing that you disconnect, you get into the space of your body and out of that dangerous space between your ears.
Even if just for a little while.
I love to read what triathletes write about yoga, especially during this time of the year. Here are some of my favorites:
1. I watched the teacher bend into a pretzel, so intimidating!
It shouldn't mater what your teacher does. Leave the competition outside kiddo.
2. Yoga teachers are holier than thou.... or think they are.
Actually....... if someone can elicit that response within you..... then likely that teacher strikes something inside of yourself that you aren't comfortable with. To that I say..... get over yourself.
3. I don't get the poses Take a basics class. Learn them. You learned your bike didn't you?
4. I don't like to sit still and meditate Whew. Me neither. Come to my class then. You will beg me to let you sit still. I should mention you will sweat your ass off so not only should you bring towel, but a change of clothes for a ride home and another for during class.
5. I don't like yoga music. Again Whew. Me neither. Come to my class then. We will get along well.
Remember........ when we are open in our minds then there are opportunities. You know the feeling of riding your bike, where it is just you and the road, no thoughts pass between your ears, you are moving on feeling, riding the high, feeling so damn connected?
That happens every single time I step onto that mat. It's through moving that people like us attain that feeling of connection. Not through sitting still. It's our personality type. That's all.
Just like in swimming, biking and running, yoga takes some time. Give it 5 classes. Trust me, something will happen. Use this off season time to give it a shot. As it comes time to delve back into the season you will know what you need to know to develop your own routine.
At Breathe we've got another Yoga and Nutrition For Athletes coming up, three consecutive Tuesday's in January. Stop by our site for more details.
Also, here is a great site for those who prefer to practice at home. In a few weeks we will post the video for the 20 minute routine that I have developed for athletes. The one missing component is, you need a good dose of 90 degree heat. Grab the space heater. Turn off the phone. Put on some music. Turn off your head.
I am okay with it if you "just can't get into yoga." That's too darn bad I will think..... because it's been such a literal lifesaver, helped me cope with so many things........ but i encourage you to give it a try.
Jump off the mental hamster wheel. Get ready for heat, and get ready to work hard.
"While heroes and role models can help us make small steps forward in the never-ending journey of becoming our true selves, they can only take us so far. Once you pass a certain point in the journey, you have to stop becoming more like the people you admire and start becoming your own unique self."
