What Makes Me Happy

I was tagged by Beth a little while ago but didn't realize because (um, in case you hadn't noticed) I've been MIA from blogland for the last couple of weeks. (Thanks, mom, for pointing it out.) Lots of work, and workout, insanity going on. 

Without further ado, 10 things that make me happy (in no particular order and probably influenced by my current mood).

1) My girl.

2) Coming home from work on a 15F night, opening the door and taking in the smell of the hearty beef stew husband had spontaneously decided to cook. Oh, and the kitchen was all cleaned up, too.

3) Teddy!!

4) Swimming. (This is going to make my coach very, very happy.)

Open water swimming usually makes me happy. But I have a love/hate relationship with the pool. Lately, however, I'm kinda liking it. At our club swims on Wednesday nights, Erica gives us fairly long practices with lots of built-in challenges. I'm loving the hypoxic sets that go something like this: 8x25 hypoxic (4-3-2-1)x2 with a nice long rest interval between each 25. The (4-3-2-1) refers to how many breaths you take during each 25. So 4 breaths, 3 breaths, etc. There are different ways to set up hypoxic sets; this version is very mellow. They can be completely hellish when the rest interval is short and some 25s call for zero breaths. Those don't make me as happy.

Hypoxic sets are supposed to help your body adapt to using less oxygen and handling more CO2. You learn to stay calm when in oxygen debt, a good skill to have come race day when you can get pummeled in the swim.

I enjoy them because they force me to relax and use less energy to get across the pool. My hands feel like giant paddles and I feel like I'm literally skimming the surface of the water.

5) Coffee.

People, this is the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. I used to have a fancy Italian press-a-button-and-you-shall-receive espresso machine. It quit, so now I use a simple French press and the coffee is just as good. In fact, I think I'll have a cup right now.

6) My mom, dad, sister, brother-in-law, and niece. I am enormously thankful to have family I'm close to.

 

Mom and dad back in the day. Sister Suzy and her husband Jim. Their daughter Rebecca June.

7) Being home.

I never thought I'd say it, but this weird little corner of eastern PA is home now. It's a unique pocket of America. Close enough to two great cities; far enough away that it still feels remote. A place where the modern and traditional collide (buggy parking for the Amish, anyone?). Home to one of the best beer distributors on the east coast, a hidden gem of an airport, and one of just 23 velodromes in the country. Where it is not unusual to overhear a bunch of middle schoolers discussing the ins and outs of procuring their USA Cycling licenses instead of what time to meet at the mall.

 

Fun times at the Valley Preferred Cycling Center velodrome.

8) Leaving the Valley.

As much as I love home, getting out and seeing other places makes me very happy. Especially when my gateway is the local Lehigh Valley International Airport, where you can arrive for a 12:30 flight at noon and be at the gate by 12:05.

9) Words.

I am fortunate to get paid for messing around with words every single day. I also have particular words I love to hear and say, including the following: bubble, lurk, lobster, owl, pamplemousse (French for grapefruit), zanzara (Italian for mosquito).

10) Eating delicious food.

And cooking it. Oh, and wine. And beer. And dessert.

Anyway, leave it to me to ramble. But there you have it. Ten things that make me happy and that I'm grateful to have in my life.

I'm not going to tag anyone in particular. Instead, in your comments, please tell me one thing that makes you happy and why (and post 10 happy things on your blog if you're feeling it). 

Good to Be Back

I woke up Wednesday morning thinking just one thing: that the hangover section in the book I'm editing won't help anyone.

I can't give away the hangover secret from the book. I can say that my doubt was a symptom of a week of excess that had me declaring at its conclusion that I cannot, under any circumstances, go out socializing four weeknights in one week. Oh, and drink a bunch of wine on the one night I stay home.

(When I re-read the hangover section, I realized that it's absolutely fine. It's just that nothing sounds sensible when the bed is spinning.)

Really, I socialized only three nights. Tuesday was a solo assault on a (partial) bottle of Bordeaux. And Wednesday was a 40-minute on/off* treadmill run followed by my longest swim in months, which included a set of descending 100s and hypoxic 25s.

And coinciding with my unusual social excess, this week I finally found myself back in a regular workout groove. These days that means not blowing off scheduled workouts left and right. So it was one-legged trainer drills and spin-ups Tuesday. Wednesday, see above. Thursday was a recovery ride that turned into me chasing my friend Christine over the hills and gravel roads of the Lehigh Valley for an hour-fifteen. Friday, well OK I blew that off. Then yesterday was VO2-max intervals on the bike in the balmy 50-degree weather followed by locomotives in the pool.

And today when I asked Craig if I could do today's long run tomorrow because of an east coast deluge, he wrote back, "Sure, just do an easy spin on the bike today."

Oh. Was going to just sit around. But OK.

Seriously, though. It's good to be back. There's nothing better for falling into bed exhausted than consistent efforts that make me feel like I'm going to puke. And I'm not talking about girls night out.

*On/offs: Kill yourself for the 'on' periods. Run the 'off' periods as slow as necessary to allow you to run the 'on' repeats until you throw up.

Running Home

Spent two days last week in a dehydration chamber (otherwise known as an airplane) for one workday in Vegas. Three days away from home. A migraine growling behind my forehead.

Had a 75-minute run on the Sin City training schedule. Was motivated to get it in by the 60-degree sunshine and the smoke-filled MGM Grand hotel/casino I wanted out of.

I've been to the southwest only a couple of times. But there's a special smell to the desert air. I can't quite peg it, probably because I'm an east coast girl and the southwest aromatic universe isn't in my scent lexicon.

As I headed out Tropicana Avenue past the airport, the scent crept its way into my nostrils and instantly I was back at the tri I did a couple of years ago about 10 miles outside downtown Vegas. Funny how scent memory works. If I closed my eyes, I was running into the barren desert with cacti and tumbleweed and mountain peaks the only distraction, a hilly 5K between me and a hard-earned finish. The desert air energized me that day: A smell that's sharp, tempered by sweet. Maybe it's floral. Or palm trees or baking sand. I don't know.

This time, running on Tropicana Avenue away from the Strip with chain link fences and shabby hotels on either side, cracked glass and torn escort ads underfoot, traffic hustling by, I couldn't get a grip on the smell. Like a slot player's quarter, it was there, then it was gone forever.

Every footfall was like stepping on spit-out gum. My whole body hurt with the effort of lifting each leg. I bagged it after 20 minutes and walked back to the hotel, agitated and disappointed.

So after spending Friday airborne and PA-bound, I spun out my legs on the trainer Saturday, and today tested my luck with an unstructured run in the frozen air.

No magical scent. Just the bitter wind and harsh sun of a frigid Pennsylvania winter noon. Barren trees and iced-over creeks on either side. A dusting of snow on the forest floor. Home.

I could have done tempo pace all day.

2010: Bring It!

In my first post of 2009, I vowed to accomplish the following:

1) Spend less time in front of computer/at work/away from Willa.

2) Run the NYC Marathon.

3) Work on core.

4) Cook more.

When I looked at that post from this past January, I wondered momentarily if I would be disappointed with myself for not achieving them. I am not a fan of resolutions because I tend to not stick to them.

But this year I was not disappointed. Here's how it went down:

1) I found lots of ways to spend time with Willa that were more satisfying than I could have ever imagined. Most were the result of taking advantage of a moment. On a whim one crystal-clear late summer day, we headed to a local lake and rented kayaks and were amazed at how much fun we had. That same day I showed her a hidden waterfall I'd discovered on a training ride. We were both enchanted. Later in the fall, we headed back to the lake where we rode bikes and I taught her to skip rocks.

One moment that sums up the kind of fun Willa and I had in 2009. 

There were a couple of missteps. I thought she'd love to try an open water swim race, but she freaked out at the start and had to DNF. But it was a learning experience. Another time I dragged her to Philadelphia when I needed to get my passport renewed in a hurry and she didn't appreciate walking all over Old City while we waited several hours for it to get printed. Though she still talks about how she selected the restaurant where we had lunch (because she liked the courtyard), which turned out to be the acclaimed Cuba Libre.

There were lots of other moments, and we still talk about most of them. My number of blog posts went down the more time I spent with her, but there's no contest as to which is more rewarding!

2) NYC Marathon: Hellz yeah!

3) and 4) My core definitely got more attention and I cooked a lot. Awesome. (Oh, plus I had a private goal of getting faster on the bike and I did, if only marginally.)

So what's on tap for 2010? I plan to challenge myself with these promises:

1) Create another remarkable year with Willa.

2) Ride more with friends. I can't tell you how tired I am of riding alone. Plan: Try to ride once a week at lunch with someone at work. Do one long ride on weekends with people in my tri club.

3) Complete a half Ironman. Likely the Endurasport Half in September.

4) Get back a little speed in my running. I ran the Christmas City Classic last year in 44:15, which felt absurdly slow. Yet the night before the same race this year, I seriously worried I wouldn't come close to it. I'd like to be able to go long without sacrificing so much speed. I will never be Kara Goucher. I'd still like to be less slow.

(And of course, keep working the core and cook lots of yummy food!)

So there it is. Here's to a year of challenges!

PS: I purposely haven't made a commitment to another marathon. Still kinda hard to imagine.

Better Than Nothing

I am not so good at the quick missives just to get something up on the blog. So pardon my extended absence.

It's been a crazy month. I've been assigned an extra project at work (editing a book) and it's seriously eating away at all my free time.

That said, I'm enjoying it. I was a book editor before I switched to magazines, and I fell right back into the familiar rhythm without missing a beat. Plus it's a book about yoga with an author who is fantastic to work with. And it's making me think about how I approach my life. I'm becoming very conscious of my breathing, which is a good thing. Instead of the occasional Ambien at night, I'm meditating myself to sleep. It really works!

I did a 5-miler last weekend in the bitter cold and managed to miss last year's time by only about 15 seconds. Not bad considering the marathon training has slowed my pace considerably. Training has been inconsistent. A week of hitting all the workouts only to be followed by a week of absolutely nothing. Better to happen in the off-season!

Getting ready for the holidays is only adding to the craziness here, but last night Willa and I made cutout cookies (my first time ever!) and had a ton of fun decorating them. Our handiwork:

We can't bring ourselves to eat them.

The Thank-You Post

Yesterday I got one of those Brightroom emails with the subject line, "Order your holiday gifts today!"

Ooh, maybe I should order a 'Look ma, no face!' mug? A engraved plaque, perhaps?

Even if I wanted to, it seems the Brightroom photo editors have been hard at work: When I opened the email and clicked on the link, the photo was mysteriously gone. Hm.

Here are some of the better shots. I'll spare you the tragic images of me pushing through the last mile trying to avoid utter collapse. I believe the middle one is on the 59th Street Bridge, just before the wheels came off. You can almost see it happening in my face.

You can't train for a marathon and be immune to the notion that the experience will change you. Or so it would seem. I'd watched Spirit of the Marathon, I'd talked to marathon-crazed friends whose eyes lit up knowingly when I spoke of my training and my fears and goals. But I didn't believe the hype. Even the motivational signage at the expo and during the race itself had me chuckling inside and shaking my head. I had no expectations beyond extreme suffering.

Apparently I underestimated the power of the marathon.

When I started training in July, I couldn't fathom the idea of the crazy-long Sunday runs I knew would show up on the schedule. Eventually, though, they became something I looked forward to. I secretly loved the completely used-up feeling afterward, and how I felt stronger in the days that followed. I loved seeing my legs grow more muscular, and my recovery time get shorter.
 
Before I knew it, the long runs were in the bank and I was posting Facebook updates along the lines of "20-plus miles on foot today." Holy crap! I really ran that far? Was it just one year ago that I still had residual stress fracture pain? 

When marathon day did not go quite as planned, it threw me. From mile 16 on, I was convinced it was the stupidest thing I'd ever done in my life. These people are fools, I thought to myself. What kind of idiots to subject their bodies to this kind of trauma? I proclaimed (silently) that my first marathon would also be my last. (A half marathon, on the other hand, seemed like a fantastic idea.) In the medical tent, I was devastated because I felt like a race casualty, more evidence of poor judgement.

And then the post-race endorphins kicked in. Congratulatory messages flooded my inbox. I was overwhelmed by what I'd accomplished, especially because I'd felt so awful during the race. My race report  flowed out of me, as if the story had a life of its own. I couldn't stop thinking about it, I couldn't sleep, I Googled anything and everything NYC marathon. My thinking became almost obsessive.

I've felt this way before: after my wedding, after my daughter was born, after I coached my sister through a difficult labor and witnessed the birth of her beautiful baby girl. These events transformed me in all the obvious ways. As the hours and days passed in that week post-NYC, I felt full of newfound confidence and pride. I had done something pretty damn spectacular, something that I never believed I could do. It shook my world.

Weeks have gone by now, and with each day it gets a little harder to remember that, but I try. It really does make a lot of other things seem inconsequential.

I have a lot to be thankful for this year. It's been a good one and the marathon made it extra special. In particular, I want to thank ASICS (Rachel and Heather especially) without whose support I might never have taken the marathon plunge and had this life-changing experience. Needless to say, I'm a big fan of their shoes, clothes, and most of all, ASICS Chafe-Free anti-friction lubricant. (I got just one blister on my foot. One! And no chafing, except where I didn't apply it.)

Many thanks to Endurance Multisport: Craig for the smart training plan, Erica for her endless encouragement, and all my fellow EnMu athletes. A shout out to my blog and Facebook friends for the virtual high fives. I am enormously grateful to Scott and Willa for putting up with my long absences on Sunday afternoons (and for the awesome  foot massages). And huge thanks to my sister Suzy and brother-in-law Jim for coming out and cheering. I couldn't see you but I knew you were there and that meant the world to me.

And We Have a Winner!

First of all, let me say thanks to all of you who entered the caption contest. I had no idea you guys were so funny. And I had no idea that some of you existed! I now declare my blog universe officially expanded.

I particularly liked the inside marathon humor from LA Badger raising what is fast becoming an age-old question, "Did Katie Holmes actually run the NYC Marathon two years ago?"

But the winning caption, the one that made me spit out my coffee, came from FatTrainer. Perfect in its simplicity:

Look Mom, NO FACE!

Because I'm indecisive (and a softie), I've also selected two runners up. The runners up will each receive half a 24-pack of PowerGel.

One runner up is... Renee from Tri Me a River:

What do you mean you don't recognize me? Those are totally my knees!

(I still snicker when I read it.)

And the other is... Karen from SCAG:

The techies are citing budget cuts again. Look, they won't even digitally blur this woman's face. They just got Susan from Accounting to stick her hand out.

I loved this one for its Gary Larson-esque-ness.
  
If you are the winner or a runner up, please leave your email address in a comment and I will contact you about where to ship, flavor choices, etc. (FatTrainer, I will also be sending you the repair bill for coffee in my MacBook keyboard.*)

*Kidding! :)