"Swimming"

I really love it when I connect with the song that is playing at the start or finish of my races. Sunday was no exception..."Best Day of My Life" was playing as we walked down to get into the water! When I jumped in I had to question the song choice....

That water was COLD. Cold enough it took my breath away for a second. Almost cold enough I contemplated, for a SPLIT SECOND, getting back out and just throwing in the towel. 

Thankfully that thought gave way to my mantra for the next almost hour..."I KNOW how to swim so just SWIM".

There was NO CURRENT Sunday morning. It could have been worse-we could have been going upstream. But on that day it would have been barely noticeable!

There was a gal back on shore when we were waiting in line who I formed an immediate crush on...she was tan, thin and cute and had a cute sleeveless wetsuit. She had a short sleeved tri top on that was super cute. I pegged her as a very fast triathlete just by her looks. Well, as I was "swimming" along I looked up and saw her hanging on a kayak. She didn't look in distress at all as I swam by her. A few minutes later, there she was again, hanging on another kayak just up ahead of me! I realized quickly we were leap-frogging each other...I saw her the ENTIRE SWIM, along with another guy who was just behind me who was doing a modified breast stroke the whole time.

It was funny because I've never looked around so much in a race. I get in and I SWIM. When I sight, I just sight, I don't look around. In Augusta when we did the relay I looked around some, but the relayers were the last in the water so there weren't many people around me in that swim. But Sunday I spent pretty much the whole swim looking around! It was as if I was just having a lazy day in the river instead of being at the start of a 70.3 "race". Because I spent at least 80% of my "swim" looking around I saw SO MANY people NOT swimming! It was shocking! I didn't see anyone who looked like they were in trouble but I had to wonder how many of them were like me (very comfortable in the water, just not swimming) and how many were actually fearful and struggling.

I had estimated the swim would take about 45 minutes but I knew about halfway in I would never make that time. I based my minimum bike speed and run pace on that estimation, and I really felt like those times were probably all I had to give on the bike and run. As I watched the minutes tick by I had to throw out my plans for the day. What's that saying, "everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face!"?

We were almost to the end and I heard my girl crush asking a kayaker how much farther until the end. So I told her, "we turn at that red buoy!" She said her goggles were so fogged she couldn't see the red buoy. I told her it was 10 of these concrete pillar things to our left, then around a corner and out. She said that was helpful and we both started swimming to our goal line. 

I never saw her again. She was probably really fast on the bike and the run!

When I got out of the water I looked up ahead and saw DWAYNE just seconds ahead of me so I took off running as fast as I could to catch him! About a minute after we got to our transition spot Cedric showed up! I was out in a very short amount of time but I knew it would be minutes before they would both pass me and I knew I would not see either of them until I crossed the finish line. 

I was right, and I was wrong.

Swim time: 59 minutes. It was the worst and the best swim I've done. Worst clock time but it was excellent people-watching!

Funny story...I found out later when I was talking to my new best friend/girl crush Dwayne heard my voice and spotted me chatting it up...he decided he was going to beat me out of the water and zoomed up ahead of me as fast as he could! (His time 58:27.)

Someone got video of me in the water! lol

Thanks for stopping by and sticking around!

Pre-race

I want to be clear here...this is a "do as I say not as I do" kind of post. It's almost embarrassing to put this out there as a coach, but it is what it is and the truth doesn't change just because you don't say it outloud.

I did NOT train for this race. I didn't honestly think I would do it until about 4 weeks ago. When we all signed up (my husband and his brother) it was my intention to train. I did a little bit but every time I really got into a groove I would be beaten down with autoimmune fatigue. That fatigue is unlike any other fatigue. It's bone-weary soul-crushing exhaustion that is all-encompassing (mental, emotional and physical). 

Then COVID postponed our race from last May until August. I never believed it was actually going to happen, and I was right. Then it was postponed until May. At the end of last year I had some "flares" of symptoms that actually had me talking to my neurologist about going on a round of IV steroids. We decided to wait because I had just switched thyroid hormone so maybe the symptoms were from that and not actually AE related.

My daughter and I were signed up for a trail race in February, but we planned from the start to hike it so I didn't train for that. And then there was McKay Hollow in March. I thought I had PLENTY of time for that one, but then realized the day before the race that the first cutoff might be tight for me to make...I did it but it was about a 20 minute pace. I knew I wouldn't have that kind of time at the 70.3.

Then in mid April I started eating Juice Plus. I had heard all kinds of success stories from several people saying they gained all this wonderful energy from it...and that was certainly my experience. But I knew I didn't have time to train, so I just kept doing what I had been doing: running/walking sporadically, "swimming" a few yards once or twice a week, and teaching Spin classes 2-3 times a week.

My plan for the race was to start and see what happened.

I don't remember EVER being that nervous before a race. But I've never been THAT undertrained, especially not for that kind of distance. I was so glad to have friends and family there to encourage me. 

We got to Chattanooga on Friday, got checked in at the race, spent some money in Athlete Village, got checked in to our AirBnB, and went to dinner. Saturday we spent some more money at Athlete Village, got our bikes checked in and then drove the course. I truly felt sick to my stomach. I didn't remember the course being THAT hilly when I did the full in 2015 (or in any of the training rides I had done there leading up to that race). My one saving grace was that I was certain the river current would make my swim super fast which would give me more time on the bike course. If I made it off the bike course within the cutoff I had calculated I would need to have about a 15 minute pace on the run to make the final cutoff. 

I got to bed fairly early that night and then woke up bright and early race morning. We all ate and packed up our bags and headed to transition to get set up. Because they had dynamic bib assignment this year we were able to be together-that was a real treat! We laid out our stuff, pumped our tires, visited the portapotties and started the 1.75 mile walk to the start line. It was super organized leaving transition-they had pace sign holders/escorts that walked the various groups down to the start...and then at the start it was PURE CHAOS!!!! It took an hour from the actual start for us to get in the water-and there were A LOT of people behind us!

Walking out to where we jumped in the water the only thing I was anxious about was the water temperature. I wasn't wearing a wetsuit (only my "floaty pants"-wetsuit shorts) because mine doesn't fit, I didn't want to buy or borrow one and I was convinced it wouldn't make that big of a difference.

I just kept telling myself "just start, give your best effort, and see what happens"....and then I jumped in....

I'll write up more race details later but I figured I'd post my Strava data for what it's worth. When I say I didn't train...I mean I REALLY didn't train...

My swim data:

My bike data:

My run data: 

((The last time I rode my real bike on the road was September 13th of 2019! Well...I did ride for 20 minutes Thursday before the race because we had just picked up the bike from the shop and needed to make sure everything was working well!))

If you are an athlete...re-read the first sentence of my post...do as I SAY not as I DO! (And, for the record, I will NOT be doing it like THAT every again!)

Thanks for stopping by and sticking around!

What Just Happened

 I remember my first and only real car wreck. I was taking my kids to see Pocahontas. It was a Monday. We'd all been in a bit of a funk all day. My husband had gone to work at the Sherrif's department (as a dispatcher). We got to the end of our road and my not-quite 3 year old son told me to turn left! Grandma's house was left, the movie theater was right. I remember being in shock that he knew "left". I told him we were turning right to go to the movies. As we were driving it started to rain, REALLY HARD. The road went down a hill and curved to the right, but my car wasn't turning to the right...we were going basically straight...and headed straight toward an 18 wheeler coming the opposite direction! I remember saying "oh no oh no oh no" and then CRASH. That was 26 years ago. I can still hardly believe it happened the way it did.

I think Sunday's race will be like that for me as well.

If you had asked me a couple of months ago if I was going to toe the start line I would have told you I didn't think I would. I have been battling exhaustion and NO POWER. At that time I hadn't been able to swim more than 1000 yards, all with fins, broken up into 50 or 100 yard intervals and all of them VERY slow. I haven't been on my real bike AT ALL in I don't even know how long. (I just looked at my data-it was March 3rd and it was a 45 minute trainer ride.) I had not been running much at all, and no more than a few miles at at time (walk/run). If I were coaching me I would have told me it wasn't a good idea for me to attempt at 70.3 with my lack of training and preparation. 

But I knew I wouldn't push to the point of risking injury. I believed the worst that could happen would be a DNF. That would be bad, but maybe not as bad as the feeling of giving up on myself before I even started! A couple of months ago I wasn't sure.

But then in the middle of March I started eating Juice Plus. After about a week I seemed to have AMAZING energy. I didn't capitalize on that energy for training because I still wasn't sure I would attempt the race I had signed up for about 18 months ago. I used that newfound energy to work in my yard every day, still not knowing if I would toe the line. 

I noticed that my swims got a little better, my runs got a little better and my Spin class power got a little (or a lot) better, but I didn't have time to "train" so I still wasn't sure if I would attempt the race. I've never experienced a DNF but I've seen what it has done to friends. At the same time, it's not like I had been giving all I have to training so if I didn't finish then I would say "well, of course I didn't finish...that's what happens when you don't train!"

So I pulled the trigger and put it out there that I was absolutely going to at least start the race and see what happened. I don't remember ever being THAT nervous before a race. It wasn't so much that I wouldn't finish...I was afraid that I would get hurt. More than that I was afraid that I would give up. But I wouldn't know unless I tried.

I was incredibly thankful to have friends and family with me for the whole thing-pre-race, race day and afterward. I was just as thankful for all the friends and family who wished me well on Facebook and via direct messages.

I'm still processing all that happened before and during the race, and working through all of it will take a little while (and several blog posts!) but, unlike the way I felt after my car wreck, I feel AMAZING today! Yesterday (the day after the race) I didn't even physically feel like I did a hard thing, other than 2 blisters on the bottom of my right foot. Today my shins are just a TAD sore.

Oh...and I can't even begin to process my brother-in-law finishing his first 70.3 in just over 7 hours on almost no training at all! (He's a BEAST on the bike but he had COVID several months ago and had some lingering cardiac symptoms from it. He had done two short practice swims in open water but this was his first triathlon. Did I mention he has really bad knees? And my husband was only about 2 minutes behind--and ran the last couple of miles at like a 9:00 pace! (He did train, but NOT the way I would have coached him!)

We all finished. I'm not in shock they finished. They are both VERY strong. Like I said, my BIL is a BEAST on the bike and my husband trained. I am in shock that I finished and within the cutoff time!

I'll break it all down in the coming days. Thanks for stopping in and sticking around!

Picking up Sticks

 I have never been someone who has had a really nice yard. In my previous two marriages my husband always took care of the yard. Our yards were fine enough, my last house with my second husband had the nicest yard. We had a lawn treatment service and a sprinkler system. All that really needed to be done was mowing, edging and trimming the bushes. When I married Dwayne he took care of the yard at first. But then I made a mistake...I made a case for quitting my job to be a "household engineer" (everyone is some kind of engineer in Huntsville!). I told him I would mow the lawn (among other household jobs) so that his weekends would be freer in the summer. That lasted a few years actually. He remembers it very differently but I vividly remember listening to The Marathon Show and I'm Here to Win by Chris McCormack while mowing. 

I can't tell you why I stopped. Maybe it was when I started coaching a lot of adults and my kids' team. I just didn't have the time or energy to get it done. Dwayne hired a guy to mow for us. Throughout all this time we had a lawn treatment service but no sprinkler system.

Our yard just continually got uglier and uglier. We had three trees in the backyard and one in the front that just got bigger and biggeer-shading the grass. We cut one of the trees in the backyard down because it wasn't growing well. One of the other two was a River Birch. It was a beautiful tree, but, unbeknownst to us it was leaching all the nutrients out of the ground making the dirt HIGHLY acidic. Last spring we had a long discussion about whether or not to cut the tree down or keep it and try to figure out how to make the grass grow. We decided to keep it and put the work in...and, no kidding, that very weekend the TREE BLEW DOWN in a storm! (You can see how the yard under it was all DIRT!)

Well....since then I have been trying VERY hard to make our yard look better. I added some natural rock edging to make flower beds, I've planted A LOT of flowers and plants, we limed the yard to bring the Ph to where it needed to be and I put out some grass seed. The yard has REALLY come A LONG way....and it still has a LONG way to go before I will be willing to call it a "nice yard".

I have no idea what kind of tree the only remaining one is in our backyard, but it's really pretty. We limbed it up so that most of the grass does at least get some sun throughout the day. I made a big rock circle around the base. I added a bird feeder and birdbath and planted Ajuga. It's one of my favorite things about my backyard now.

Except...

That tree really drops a lot of little limbs any time the wind blows. Combined with the Crepe Myrtles that line the back fence, we end up with A LOT of little sticks all over the yard.

I didn't seem to notice or mind when I didn't really care what the yard looked like, but now that I do, these sticks are the bane of my aspiring gardening existence. 

Last spring, when I realized the sticks were an issue, I asked Dwayne not to mow until I picked them up. He didn't wait. We ended up with A TON of chopped up sticks ALL OVER THE YARD! They weren't small enough to "feed" the yard (maybe that's not even a thing?), but they were barely big enough to pick up! I walked the yard in a grid pattern with a bucket for HOURS trying to get them all up....believing this was crucial to the health of my yard.

Here's what I noticed. When I started, I picked up the big sticks and barely noticed the really small ones. But as the larger ones were collected the little ones seemed to "grow" so I'd go back over the yard again, picking those up. But as I did this I began to notice the tiny little twigs that I had not seen before...and as I picked up those twigs then I noticed the weeds! As I have started dealing with the weeds I have begun to also focus on overseeding and feeding the grass...learning how to water it and cut it properly.

I think back to those years when we first lived here...I had NO IDEA the River Birch was actually causing harm to the health of the dirt. I NEVER paid attention to those sticks (that were being copped up by the mower and probably causing additional "damage"). I never even thought about watering the yard, or how to mow it properly. 

Let me tell you...taking care of our bodies is just the same. Most people have little habits that are at best not optimal but at worst they are causing unseen damage that eventually is not only seen but felt! When you feel unhealthy (from chronic issues, I don't mean from something like a stomach bug) it won't be a quick fix to reverse the process and "get healthy". It will be much like "picking up sticks".

If you are having an issue with your yard, I can't really help with that because I'm a true beginner and I don't plan to do a deep dive into learning all the things I would need to know in order to help someone else have a nice-looking yard. But if you are noticing some "sticks in your yard" when it comes to how you are feeling, reach out to me. I have spent the last year becoming a Nutrition Coach and a Functional Nutrition Counselor. I'm still learning. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a nutritionist or registered dietician, but I can help you "pick up sticks" and move you in the right direction.

Thanks for stopping by and sticking around (no pun intended!)

Chapter Five Academy

Sixteen years ago I was out of shape, in a "bad marriage", working a very high-stress job, and although I didn't realize it I was physically, mentally and spiritually unhealthy.

Let me back WAY up. Stay with me here....

My parents got divorced when I was very young. My biological father was an electrician who worked out of state...in any state but the one we lived in. When he was home, he and my mom argued...angrily, loudly and non-stop. They got divorced when I was in kindergarten. We moved from Garland, Texas to North Little Rock, Arkansas. My mom started dating a man who I called my father after they got married a few years later. I'll skip the details of my childhood story. I mean, an evil witch didn't send me into the woods, put me to sleep, or feed me a poisoned apple, but suffice it to say it was the worst part of my fairy tale...

I had TERRIBLE stomach issues. In the third grade I was put on a special diet. The main thing I remember is that I wasn't allowed to drink milk and I couldn't eat my usual bologna and cheese (food) sandwich. I was also a bedwetter. I would have thought it was caused by a physical issue, but it finally stopped when I wet the bed of a friend I had spent the night with! I was MORTIFIED...and I tried, in vain, to lie saying she did it. I'm sure she told everyone in school. Thankfully she moved away and, that I know of, that reputation didn't follow me.

My "father" prevented me from having any semblance of a "normal" youth experience so making friends was exceptionally hard. And, although I was smart, I wasn't part of the really smart crowd. I dated a few guys in high school and had a few "friends" but I was more or less, for all intents and purposes, alone.

I joined the Army National Guard as a senior in high school. Both of my parents were in the Guard (my mom was a Warrant Officer and my "dad" was a Command Sargent Major), so that path seemed natural. A couple of years later I met my first husband. He was (is) a big man...a big teddy bear who loved me fiercely. We didn't know each other long but I saw him as a protector and a way out of a very bad situation at home. We got married and the stomach issues from years before came crashing back. I did every test the doctors could think of. I took several kinds of medicine. Nothing worked to calm the debilitating pain I experienced daily....until I met a doctor who explained to me my issue was stress-related. I tried to tell him I was not a stressed individual. I was handling my life "just fine thank you very much". 

After all I was going to school full time with a really good GPA. I was in Officer Candidate School. I was newly married. And I was working full time. ...all withOUT being stressed about any of it. I can still hear him calmly telling me my body was trying to tell me how stressed I really was. I did try to listen but I simply didn't know what to DO with that information. How could I fight this invisible stress monster? 

Well...I started by ending my military "career", finishing school, having two kids, moving out to the country, getting divorced and taking a job I really didn't want but paid the bills. Along the way, I started what would be a lifetime of therapy trying to undo the knots of my existence. Shortly after ending my first marriage, I started my second one. 

Here's the thing, when someone says a marriage is bad what they really mean is the people in the marriage are unhealthy. Don't pounce on me here, but even if one spouse is abusive, the abused spouse is obviously NOT healthy or they wouldn't be in that relationship in the first place! My marriage wasn't abusive, but it was far from healthy because neither of us were healthy individuals. In 2006 that marriage ended.

Allow me to take an important side trail for a moment. When I was little my parents took me to church on the requisite holidays-Easter and Christmas. When my mom remarried, my step-sister took me to church with her almost every week. It was a "walk the aisle now and be washed in the holy water so you don't go to hell" kind of church. Naturally, I walked the aisle...but I realized the next morning I was still in hell. That water didn't do anything for me. Some very life-changing experiences pointed me to the God I would eventually come to know but that relationship started out more like an awkward blind date that didn't gain any traction for years to come. When I got married I wanted us to "have a church family" but the truth is I had no idea what "family" was even supposed to look like, and church was not the place to find out! When I married my second husband we settled into a routine that involved going to "God's house" every week but He was never fully invited into ours...

...until the night I came home to a half empty shell. I had taken my kids to their dads for the weekend and on the way home it started snowing. My husband had texted me several days earlier (on Valentine's Day no less) to tell me he was leaving. While I was at work and dropping off the kids he was dividing our property.

That is the night I finally surrendered my life to my creator. I've spent the last 15 years laying my burdens at the foot of the cross (and taking them back up...and laying them back down...depending on how strong I'm feeling at any given moment!).

God has led me to the healthiest relationships I've ever had in my life (including a wonderful Prince Charming of a husband!)...this has happened because I've continued to become a healthy individual...in mind, body and spirt.

But, as I have been reading in "The Body Keeps the Score" (written by Bessel van der Kolk), childhood trauma (or big-T Trauma) stays in your body and wreaks havoc. Combine that with years of a Standard American Diet and you have a recipe for all kinds of gut/brain/body malfunction.

My personal malfunction came to a massive exploding head in 2016 when I was diagnosed with Autoimmune Encephalopathy. I had previously been diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis (autoimmune thyroid disease). It seemed my body was now attacking my brain!

I had spent the seven years prior to that horrible disease and crushing diagnosis trying to figure out why my body would want to attack itself. Doctors kept telling me "it just happens" but that didn't make sense in my world. I went back and forth between "wanting to take control" of my health and believing there was nothing I could do about it. Through this process, I was introduced to triathlon and to Functional Nutrition. I became an Ironman triathlete, an ultramarathoner, a triathlon coach, started a kids triathlon non-profit (Omni Kids Tri), and (when the disease and it's treatment coupled with Covid took the fullness of all of that away from me) I became a nutrition coach.

One more little side trail and we'll come full circle to the title of this post!

I remember when I started coaching. I had just discovered triathlon and was loving it. I "knew" there was no way I could coach THREE sports I barely knew myself so I took the RRCA run coaching certification course (actually after taking on two paying clients, but they knew I wasn't a "real coach" yet...actually they knew I was a real coach but I didn't feel like I was because I didn't have that piece of paper to confirm it yet!). With just a little encouragement I realized it was silly to think I couldn't do what I felt called to do and quickly obtained my USA Triathlon Level One and Youth Junior certifications.

This same kind of thing happened last year when I got my Precision Nutrition Level One nutrition coaching certification. What I really wanted was to be a Functional Nutrition Counselor but felt like that was too big of a leap...until the distance between where I was and where I wanted to be was made shorter by the stepping stone of the PN course!

And...here we are...why I started this post!! If you are still with me I hope the ride was worth it...

Last year when I started the Functional Nutrition Alliance Full Body Systems course I spent days praying and searching for the perfect name for my new business that had not yet taken shape. I REALLY wanted to call it Sophrosyne but my trusted confidants STRONGLY advised against it.

And then God led me to "Autobioghray in Five Short Chapters" by Portia Nelson. 

It's taken me a year to get more comfortable on this "other street" (and truth be told, I'm still "getting comfortable"- I think that will be the continuing story of my life!)...but I'm ready to coach you whenever you are ready....in running, in triathlon, in nutrition, or in functional nutrition. I'm not the author of your script, but I want to come alongside of you to help you continue your story.

Let's connect! You can reach out to me in the comments, or via Facebook. I want to hear from you. Thanks for stopping by and for sticking around!