Stateside

I am very happily residing in Minnesota once more.  When I wake up in the morning, GB is beside me, and when I come downstairs, Finn and Jack are there, so life is as it should be.  Of course, my in-laws are also there, but that’s because we are living in their house.  Lucky for all of us, we get along quite nicely.

We had a wonderful road trip here from New England and got to see some of our good friends (albeit very briefly) on the trip.  We were surprised to realize that while we miss our friends there, we don’t actually miss Massachusetts as much as we expected to, so it was not the sad trip we had anticipated.  So much has changed for us since December and I think we have associated moving towards our long-term plan with moving away from Massachusetts.  Funny how that happens.

Anyway, we are back in MN and very happy about it.  GB is working and I am playing housewife.  Mostly this involves sitting around drinking coffee, reading blogs, swimming, biking, running, lifting, resting, laundry, and cooking.  You will notice that a small minority of those items involve the betterment of the house, and most involve the betterment of me.  But hey, this is my summer vacation so I’m a half-assed housewife.  I don’t know anybody in the Twin Cities and quite frankly, don’t really know where or how I will meet people.

I spend large (frighteningly large) amounts of time at the gym but no-one seems to talk to anyone else there.  It’s an amazing gym and unlike any place I have ever been except for the gym Fedofsky goes to in Chicago.  There are seemingly hundreds of cardio machines and two giant rooms of weights.  There is a steam room, a dry sauna, two hot tubs, free towels, millions of lockers, a cafe…its’ like going to the spa.  Don’t tell anyone, but yesterday I went there at 11am and didn’t leave until nearly 3pm.  That place is worse than Facebook.  Like Facebook, but without the friends.

Other than that, I finally bought a new triathlon bike, the picture of which I will post in the near future.  It took us a few days to get acquainted, butt I’m now very happy with my purchase and I think it will make a big difference riding a bike that is ten years newer.

Training is going extremely well and since I recovered from my surgery I have had two very solid weeks and am feeling amazingly healthy and strong.  I am not expecting big things from my race next week but I am really excited to be racing.  I think it’s probably a little early in my season to be expecting huge improvements so I am focusing on August, September, and October for my A races.  Lifetime is my favorite race ever and I’m really excited to be back here for it again this year.

That’s all the word from the Midwest.  Maybe now I’m settled into my housewifely life, I’ll blog more.  Less to say and more time to say it.

It has been three weeks since my surgery and it is now a distant memory.  I did not recovery nearly as quickly as I initially thought I would, but I was back training within ten days, so I was hapy abo

Belly Busters

Last Friday I took twenty-eight fifth graders to the beach.  We had an absolute blast and the kids were really well behaved.  We spent a lot of time doing what island kids call ‘belly busters’.  This involves lining up along the back of the beach and then all at the same time running full tilt towards the water and throwing yourself belly-down onto the water.  It stings and is a lot of fun.  We did a lot of belly busters.  I’m sure it was difficult to tell which of us was the teacher in the group since I played as hard as the kids did.

On Saturday morning I woke up with extreme stiffness in both hips and quads.  As I moved my screaming legs and hips out of bed, I tried to remember the previous day’s workouts and to figure out why I was so sore. 

Then I remembered.  Belly Busters.  I had essentially done sprint repeats in the sand for about an hour.  Nice.

This week has been a busy one with lots of training at the front end of the week in preparation for no training in the middle of the week.  I had my surgery this morning and thankfully came out of the anesthetic very easily with no nausea or grogginess.  Well, I was a little sassy with the nurses, but that is allowed in the recovery room when you are under the influence.  Having fasted for my surgery, my first concern was food.  A nurse very kindly brought me two biscuits one of which I set about eating (this takes a long time when you have had a breathing tube in for a few hours and your throat is really sore), and the other I used my survival instincts to scurry away lest the nurse take it from me.  I did eventually finish them both and I don’t think even a Cliff Block on a long ride has ever tasted that good.

I think the most fun (and ego-boosting) part of the surgery was how the nurses would all come up to my monitor and marvel at my low heart rate, saying things like “you must be an athlete” or “so what do you do to keep so fit?”.  Of course, I lapped that right up.  My HR was actually so low that it was constantly setting off the alarms which consider a HR of below 45 bpms to be brachychardia (a medical condition which I do not have).  I got a real kick out of that.  To stop the annoying alarms I would have to move some body parts to get my HR to go up.

Anyway, the fun is all over and I am relieved that I woke up from the anesthetic (always a worry of mine that I won’t).  My incisions are very small and other than the fact that I look preggers from all the carbon dioxide they pumped into my abdominal cavity, I feel pretty good.  I am going to take tomorrow off since I suspect I will be more sore tomorrow, but I am very, very thankful for what has so far been a very quick and easy recovery.

Now I just have to get healthy for my plane ride on Saturday [grin].

Chicken

On the whole, I would say things are going very well at the moment.  Now that my back is back to normal I am back in the full swing of training and am very pleased with how it is going.    I am also back in my routine of getting up and doing a workout before work which always makes my days that much better - and leaves a lot less training for the end of the day!

There are only nine sleeps left until I join GB in Massachusetts for our road trip back to our old stomping ground to see friends and family before we drive back to Minnesota for TEN weeks of togetherness.  Needless to say we are both pretty excited.

Next week I am having laparoscopic surgery to clean out the endometriosis found on a recent ultrasound and possibly the culprit behind my constant abdominal pain.  Even though this is fairly simple surgery, I am nervous to be going under general anesthetic and to not have GB nearby when I do.  I’m a total chicken about hospitals.  My surgery is on Wednesday and school finishes on Friday so my goal is to be there for the last day of school.  I’m hoping that I’ll recover from the surgery with super-human speed, but just in case I don’t, I have taken Thursday off.

Anyway, hopefully it will fix my recent health problems and won’t get too much in the way of my training.  The important thing is that I’m healthy enough to get on that plane on Saturday!

The Search

I had an awesome long weekend with lots of solid workouts and equal portions of quality rest.  Consequently my body is feeling strong and healthy (mystery abdominal illness aside) and I feel like I have been able to absorb the training I have been doing.  I’ve had to make more than a few smart decisions to avoid getting injured and I’m proud to say that I seem to at least be learning that!

Every season I seem to reach a point of restlessness; of needing something I can’t find.  Of course if I knew what that thing was, I’d have a better idea of where to look!  This is the point in my season where I usually start to look for a fresh approach or something different.  Sometimes I get a new coach.  Other times, I just whine.  This year, the coach is me, and GB and I are in separate countries.  Which means I can’t fire my coach and the only person who can hear my whining is me! 

Partly I am lacking in training buddies.  I have an awesome swim buddy but no one to run or ride with.  I am absolutely eating up the running right now and am so happy that my body has been good to me, but I’ll admit that I’m less than enthusiastic about cycling these days.

Being my own coach has been great for a little increase in self-awareness.  I have rehabbed my way out of my back injury without a coach and I have kept an old ITB issue at bay without a coach.  Heck, I have even put together and followed what I believe to be a solid training plan without a coach.  Now that I have moved away from doing a workout because someone else is holding me accountable, I have really learned how to hold myself accountable.  Although I’m not in excellent running or cycling shape yet, I think I may in many ways  be stronger than I have ever been, physically.  The problem, I think, is that I need a cheerleader.  And part of the plan behind coaching myself was to learn how to be that cheerleader for myself.  I guess I’m having a lapse.  I want someone else to know what went into a workout and to say “great job, Ness!”.  Does that make me less self-aware?  Probably.  But I still want it.  I miss opening up a week’s workouts and seeing what’s in store.  The suspense is pretty much gone when you write your own, as much as I might try to surprise myself.  I’m not sure if this means I need a coach or I need an attitude adjustment.  Likely the latter.  With me, it’s usually the latter.

Back At It

It has been a long two months coming, but my back is finally in decent condition and I am able to train like a normal person again.  There are no ART practitioners on the island so it was difficult finding someone who could help fix the problem.  Nonetheless, I found him and am in much better shape after two weeks of excellent rehab.  I have been running regularly for close to two weeks now and am really loving it.  I’m also being very good about not doing too much too soon and am being duly rewarded.  To top it off, my gym workouts have been stellar and that is also paying off nicely.

Work is going fabulously and I am sad to be winding down to my last month with these awesome fifth graders.  I really got lucky with this bunch and it has been so much fun hanging out with them every day.  I worry that I haven’t taught them nearly enough, but no-one can say we haven’t laughed enough.  The enormous upshot of only having a month left here on the island is that it will only be one month until GB and I are reunited again for TEN WHOLE WEEKS!  I can barely contain myself at the thought.   I think we are managing really well with the distance, but I so miss being together as a team.  I miss coffee together in the morning and goodnight kisses before sleep.  I miss holding hands, and driving together, and even disagreeing about stuff.  I could go on and on, but I won’t.  You get the picture: I’m excited to be spending ten weeks with GB.  I’m also excited that while we haven’t been together for much of our first year of marriage, we will be together on our first anniversary.

We’re a little parched here on the Rock.  We rely on rain for our drinking/flushing/bathing water, so when it doesn’t rain for a really long time, we develop a situation.  It hasn’t rained here in WEEKS and people are getting very anxious about water.  You can buy more, of course, if you run out.  But it costs a fortune and the waiting list is over a week.  Luckily I am housesitting this week so I am not being subjected to my father’s militant approach to showers (ie. recording and calculating water consumption).  Hopefully it will rain soon.  And hard.  Then everyone can relax a little and we can take showers that last longer than a minute.

Well, that’s all the word for now.  I don’t have internet access at my housesit, hence the enormous gap in my blogging.  I’ll be back at it regularly again soon – especially now that I have some real training to report!

Outdoor Shower

 

The view from my shower this morning

Back in the early days of our relationship, GB and I were housesitting at an amazing off-the-grid house in Massachusetts with a hot-water outdoor shower.  It was by far my favorite feature of the house although only operable during the warm weather, of course.  I swore that when we eventually build a house it will have one because I love them.  This weekend I’m housesitting for friends who have – you guessed it – an outdoor shower.  So this morning after my run I had a fabulous shower overlooking the ocean, as you can see.

Out of nowhere, it is suddenly summer here.  The temperature hasn’t been much above seventy, but the humidity is about 85% and you can pretty much drink the air.  I love it when it gets like this.  I’m not a big sweater usually when I exercise, but I love the glossy glow of running in the humidity.  Had I not been working at the triathlon store today I might have run straight to the beach and gone swimming.

Speaking of swimming, I have done plenty of that this week.  I had two solid pool sessions this week as well as three ocean swims.  I convinced my swim buddy to come to the ocean swim and I was so psyched when she showed up.  Just like in the pool we swam the entire way side by side and stroke for stroke.  It’s really fun to have someone who is so exactly matched with my pace.  I only wish I had someone like that to run with!

I can hardly believe there are only five weeks left until school gets out and I fly back to Minnesota for the summer.  It will be weird not having the ocean to train in but wonderful having GB and the dogs back in my life for ten weeks.  I am already researching tri training groups to see if I can get out and meet some triathletes in the Twin Cities.  I also need to keep building my training back so I’m ready to take on the racing season when I arrive.  This week has been a decent week of training and I managed two painless runs.  I may even try another tomorrow depending on how the morning goes.  In the meantime, I’m going to sit outside and marvel at the view.

Happy Mother’s Day to any mothers out there.  Here on the rock people say “Happy Mother’s Day” to everyone in the same way that people say “Merry Christmas” or any other holiday greeting that applies to everyone.  It’s funny to hear people saying “Happy Mother’s Day” to men but I guess there’s no reason they  shouldn’t have a happy day too!

 

The dogs I am hanging out with this weekend

Ocean

I have to say, one enormous upside of being back home on the island is ocean swimming.  The water is up to 73 degrees now and is just perfect at the end of a hot day.  I am slowly and carefully reintroducing cycling and running back into my training but I have been swimming like a maniac.  In addition to my club swimming in the pool,  I now have a group of adults who do an open water swim every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after work.  We usually swim somewhere between one km and one mile, so it’s nothing major but WELL worth it.  It functions as both a recovery swim for me in between pool days and as an opportunity to practice my open water swimming and sighting.  There is nothing like swimming over a coral reef in crystal clear water to wash away the stress of the day.

In other happy news, I have noticed since coming back from Easter Break that my fifth graders and I seem to be in a real routine.  After nearly three months together we have things going pretty smoothly and I feel like we’re in a real groove.  It’s so great to have things going smoothly now that we have all figured each other out.  I always find it difficult to get kids to switch between goofy (which I enjoy) and serious (which is necessary sometimes) and I feel like we have reached a place where the kids pick up on my cues so quickly and easily that the days are very smooth.  Of course, by saying this I’ve likely set myself up for a crazy day!

Well, here we are at Thursday!  I hope everyone has a great day.

Humbled

Well, I raced today.  I have been having all manner of bodily problems in the past six weeks or so: a spinal joint injury, a reappearance of my ITB issues, and something non-sports related and yet-undiagnosed.  I haven’t wanted to blog about these things because I don’t want to have a blog filled with “this hurts and that hurts and I don’t feel well”.  But things hurt and I haven’t felt well for quite some time.  Consequently I have ridden my bike once (well twice after today) in the past month and run about five times in that period of time.  Thankfully I have still been able to swim and am making progress in the pool.

Yesterday I decided I should do the sprint triathlon that was happening today.  I love to race and have been terrified to race back on the island since I’ve been here.  The last time I raced here was almost a decade ago and I have been feeling lots of pressure (internal) to perform well when I make my big debut.  For this reason, I have been putting off said debut for quite some time.  However, I woke up yesterday with minimal pain in my painful places and decided to register for the race.  I knew it wouldn’t be an all-out day and I knew I would not be impressing the people I was hoping to impress which is another reason I decided to do the race.  Sometimes if you just face up to your worst fear it turns out not to be so terrible.

The swim went well except that I was wearing a tri top with big side pockets (I had forgotten that I usually wear a wetsuit to race so this drag is not normally an issue).  Lesson learned.  Get a tighter top for non-wetsuit racing.

I was the third woman out of the water and the first female swimmer not in a team event, which is right where I should be after 11 km weeks in the pool.  I had a great transition and hauled ass on the bike.  However, my hauling ass was no match for the women who actually HAD been training and I got beat-down out there and lost a lot of places.  I was not originally planning to do the run (although part of me must have been planning to do it because I had put my race number and running shoes in transition!).  If there is one thing I do not like, it is not finishing a race.  So I decided to try my back and IT band out and start with a gentle jog.  S

Some time during the first kilometer of this gentle jog I guess it got a little too gentle and I stopped picking my feet up.  I tripped on a root and hit the ground hard and fast.  I don’t think I even stopped because the woman running beside me was still beside me when I started running again and she didn’t stop.  It was sort of a trip, dive, jump up, and run.  I was a little scraped up and focusing on my bleeding parts as I was running while trying to make sure my tri shorts hadn’t ripped.  Fortunately the damage to both me and my tri shorts was minimal and I think the extra adrenaline was exactly what I needed to override any other injury pains!  I stayed smart though, and continued to run slowly until the very end of the race when I knew my body was holding up.

Over a sprint distance, my time was about 20 minutes slower than it should have been on a healthy, fit day.  It’s hard to reconcile that in my head and to walk away saying “hey, I achieved my goal of not exacerbating any injuries and finishing the race”.  During everyone’s race post-mortem I wanted to say “Yah i have injuries and sickness and I fell and I forgot to pump up my tires and I had to stop on the bike because something was in my tire and I was riding a steel-frame kids bike with junior gearing and…”.  But really (although I just said all that here) what I tried to say was “Under the circumstances, it was an awesome day”.  Because it was.

Bad Earthling

Yesterday was Earth Day and I somehow managed to be LESS environmentally responsible than I usually am – I drove further than I had to, used a disposable coffee cup, left some lights on in the house, and forgot to talk about Earth Day with my students. Oh well, I will make up for it another time. Maybe today. Can you tell that working in a Catholic School, I’m developing a strong sense of Catholic Guilt?

It’s good to be back on the rock after an amazing two weeks with GB. It was much easier to say ‘goodbye’ this time and I think we are getting into the groove of ‘hello and goodbye’, which is good because we still have another year of it! I think it was also easier this time because we each got to spend time in the other’s world and with the other’s family, so we are all caught up now. Also when I go back to Minnesota in June it will be for about ten weeks, so we will get to see lots and lots of each other.

It’s amazing how precious the little things become when you have been apart for so long. It’s so much fun to wake up together, or go for a walk together, or have a meal. These are things one quickly gets used to when they are available every day.

In other news, I am still fighting with my back pain. Nothing major but I seem to have just enough of a facet joint injury to make me uncomfortable at night and to prevent me from doing much running. Thankfully I did get two painless runs in this week, although I think that kickboxing yesterday afternoon might have set me back a few days (can’t believe I didn’t see that one coming!).
Other than that I am trying to catch up on the two weeks’ of sleep that I missed while GB and I were living it up with friends and family. Last night I scored almost ten hours of sleep, so perhaps I’m on my way to caught-up.

Spring

GB and I had an amazing week on the Island.  It was really fun to show off my homeland and we were laughing about how this is the first time GB has been there given how long we have been together!  We did at least a million fun things, including renting a boat and anchoring near a reef so we could go snorkelling.  GB is as unreasonably terrified of barracuda as I am of black bears, so it was fun to have the tables turned and to be the brave one for a change!  For most of the week we were house sitting at a gorgeous house overlooking the ocean.  We spent lazy mornings having coffee in the sun and pretty much caught up on seven weeks’ worth of conversation and laughter.  It’s amazing how much fun we have doing absolutely nothing.

We spent the last two nights at my parents’ house which was chock full of both the frustrating and the magical moments that families are made of and that I think GB would have felt like the week was incomplete without.  We also got to catch up with some of the friends that were at our wedding and with the few who weren’t able to make it across the ocean.

GB did not want to leave the warm sunny days and ocean breezes, but after seven weeks on the Rock (eight, including the week GB was there), I was hankering for a visit to a major continent and also to spend time with the dogs and with GB’s family in Minnesota.  We flew into Minneapolis this weekend and have already crammed a week’s worth of good times into the past 36 hours or so.  It was so great to see Finn Dog who was beside himself with excitement.  I always harbor a secret fear that he’ll forget me while I’m gone, but alas, he has not yet and we are happily reunited again.  I’m here until next weekend and am so happy to be in the land of thaw and earthy smells.  It sounds weird, but while I grew up on the ocean, it’s the smell of Spring that makes me feel the most at home and reminds me of happy days on my Godparents’ farm.  I don’t know Minnesota that well and I don’t have many acquaintances here yet beyond GB’s friends.  But my dogs and my partner are here and as long as that is true, this is where home is.  It has been a surprisingly emotional trip here this time, I think because I realize how much I miss GB and the dogs when I’m here with them.  On the Rock it’s easier to put my head down and stay busy and block out some of the hard stuff.  Thankfully I will be back again in another two months and this time for the whole summer!  In the meantime I’m soaking up the smells and every moment I have with GB and the pups.