Wow! I didn't expect THAT!

I registered for a Turkey Trot for Thanksgiving morning. I wanted to go in to lunch with a big appetite and a little freedom to indulge more than usual.

They were also sponsoring a 10K. Since I'm well-trained for that distance, too, I signed up for it.  Afterall, three more miles would equal twice the freedom to indulge.

The race itself was great. It was about 40 degrees, sunny and through some beautiful parts of town. I ran the whole race with a girl named Shelli. We had the same pace and kept each other motivated.

Around the four-mile mark, I started getting strong hunger pains, making me long for Thanksgiving lunch even more.  Directly after the race, I was able to eat two mini bagels to help alleviate the immediate hunger.

I drove home, put some corn on the stove while I changed clothes, and Gary and I headed over to his aunt's. After the prayer was given, I loaded up my plate and began eating.  This was the moment I'd been dreaming of for weeks.

I like to take my time eating, savoring every bite, but I found myself eating very, very slowly. I was enjoying the tastes of the food, but I wasn't very hungry. I did eventually go have seconds, but I waited about 30 minutes before doing so. I ate that food very slowly, too.

I certainly did not expect THAT to happen to me. I was expecting this race to create a partnership between my hunger and the wonderful food that would mollify it.  Instead, it created a cool distance between the two, one that left me disappointed that I couldn't fully enjoy my favorite holiday of the year.

From what I understand, it can be hard to eat solid foods after long distances, but six miles is hardly a long distance, so I don't know exactly what was up with my physiology that day.

However, next year I'll just schedule a long training day the day before Thanksgiving and skip any Turkey Trots. The relationship between my appetite and a Thanksgiving feast is something that is way too important.

The way things ought to be

Every day should be sunny. Every day should have temperatures in the 70s. Every day I should feel motivated to train. Every day should be injury free. Every day I should have time to train. Every day I should be able to have a productive workout.

That's the way things outta be.

That is, however, not the way things are.

Each Monday the last few weeks, I've felt like that was going to be the week that I would get back into my training routine. Well, it never happened.

Tonight, this new Monday, my anticipation of 70 degree temperatures, coupled with the feeling of my loose jeans not being nearly quite as loose, would serve as perfect motivation to get me out and running. It was on!

The office door closed behind me at 5:30 p.m. Instead of a somewhat sunny sky greeting me, a pink sunset fading behind the shadowy horizon was my welcoming landscape. "Oh, crap" I managed to mutter as I shuffled to my car, completely devastated about the potential of my dream run.

Not totally wanting to give up hope, I thought, "I can just immediately go home and throw on different clothes and running shoes and at least spend 5 minutes running in some light."

But because negative thoughts are skilled at reaching further within your mind and becoming buddies with the other negative thoughts that had been just below the surface, I began to think about all the things I had to do this evening that would destroy the run totally. I absolutely had to have tonight more dog food (a trip to TSC) and coffee for tomorrow morning (a second trip, this one to Wal Mart). I should probably make dinner, but I've got a pile of dishes to clean...yada, yada, yada.

A little background: Up until a few months ago, I worked from home. I could do all of my training during the day if I wanted...and I did want.

I've since gone back to work full time and I'm completely happy about it. I've got a dream job that challenges and excites me and I really enjoy the people with whom I work. Now that it's darker in the evenings, I'm just having a harder time adjusting.

I do know that I will win this battle. When I started working full time again this summer, I was faced with the challenge of training in the evenings instead of during the day - and it was beautiful and sunny in the evenings!

I struggled with finding my motivation for a bit, but then I eventually found my groove. Now that it's darker out, life has just decided to shake things up a bit.

Though I've realized it in parts before, it really hit me as I pulled into Wal Mart that perfect circumstances rarely line up, that they are the exception, not the rule, and it is working around the things that won't work around you that are the keys to moving forward. Finding opportunity in the unscheduled, erratic demands of life is what I need to remember as I head into the dark, cold and quiet winter.

You know, at the end of the day it comes down to me answering one very simple question: "Do you want to train or don't you?" The answer is easily, "Yes, I do!"

Your results are in

Thanks to all of you who voted in the off-season poll, and to those of you who left such great comments. Here are the final results:

• 44% of you will be focusing on your weakest event.
• 22% of you will be doing something other than what was listed.
• 16% of you will be increasing training intensity.
• 8% of you say, "What off-season?"
• 4% of you will be decreasing training intensity but focusing on something else like yoga.
• 4% of you will have 2010 as your first season.

Already I've found myself not living up to my goal of focusing on my weakest event: swimming. I like running so much, and it's easier to get ready for than a swim, that I just go out and do it instead of hitting the pool.

In my defense, though, there are only a few milder days of fall left, so I'm trying to take advantage of them by being outside. There will be plenty of cold days ahead to go and warm up in a pool. I will actually start heading to the pool more here in the next couple weeks.

Again, thanks for your votes and for your comments. Have a wonderful next week!

I want to hear from you

As I head into the off season, my last race of the season complete and in the books, I have been thinking about what I'm going to do over the next few months. Having specific race goals for the next season, I strongly believe, is the biggest factor in how we triathletes plan our winters.

With this in mind, I'm considering an early season half-iron distance race, but definitely either doing the Cedar Point Rev3 half or even pushing for the full at the end of next season. So, for me, I have to start getting much faster in the pool.

Now, I completely understand that tris aren't won or lost in the pool, but when you're such a slow swimmer you can barely make that cut-off time, being stronger on the bike and run becomes moot.

Here's a stat to back me up: In my last tri, a 1,000 yard swim, my pace was 2:48/100 yards. If I could knock 30 seconds off of that I would be happy. If I could knock off one minute, I'd do cartwheels in my front yard.

So, as I think about my own winter plans, I was curious to see what everyone else is doing. At the top, right part of this blog, you'll find a poll. Please take a second to vote, then drop me a line to let me know what you think. If you clicked "Other", let us know what that is.

As always, thanks for stopping by.

Courage waiting to be summoned

Someone once said that if you find yourself needing courage, that means that you must be in an extraordinary circumstance at that moment. (Thank you, http://www.quirkyredliner.blogspot.com/.)

No one needs courage while brushing his or her teeth, brewing coffee or taking the dogs for a walk. Though, of course, if you would see the size of my dogs, you might suppose that I would, indeed, need it.

No, courage isn't particularly an everyday-use item. It is only useful in the face of something formidable, be it dealing with another person, taking on a new challenge or finishing a triathlon for the first time, especially when you started with zero experience.

Even though Sunday's race was my first Olympic distance triathlon (.6-mile swim, 25-mile bike, 6-mile run), I'd been beating myself up for not being stronger and faster to make the swim and bike cut-offs for the half-iron distance race that same day.

Being so slow on the swim would cramp into the bike time, leaving me with needing almost another hour on the bike. Crunching the numbers meant that - at the end of the day - I just wasn't ready. If I were within striking distance, I would have pushed hard, using my body's adrenaline as an ally...but I wasn't.

Though there was no disputing these hard, rational numbers, the emotional part of me wondered if I just wasn't mustering enough courage. Did I still have the fire in the belly? I wouldn't need to wonder much longer.

The wind was fierce on this very overcast morning; the air temperature chilly enough to make you long for the water's warmth. Every fierce chop of the gray water was sending a visible message to those of us on the shoreline: You'd better bring your best.

A couple hundred yards into my swim, even after getting into my groove, I became frightened for my life. (Check out this fellow participant's post about it at www.tridiesel.blogspot.com/2009/09/race-report.html.)

The chop was destroying me with every encounter.

I caught the attention of a boat close by and flagged the folks on there. A nice guy, Rick, jumped into the water in his wetsuit, bringing a flotation device. I told him I was seriously considering calling it quits, but as those words parted my lips, I realized how badly I wanted to finish, how I knew I could finish, how I did not want this to be the story to come from my day.

I thanked Rick, put my head back in the water and just kept swimming. Though I had to swim stronger to fight the current, I ended up having a better than expected swim time given my long pause in the beginning.

Just because I was done with the swim did not mean that the wind was done with me. It continued to beat me down on the bike, creating headwinds that rivaled those on this course last year during Landicane Ike. When I would begin to slow down, I would mutter to myself, "Every second counts, Lora!" and continued to push harder.

Less than a half-mile on the run, my legs heavy from the bike, I thought, "Oh, my gosh! How in the world am I going to run six miles? That's so far away!" I just focused on taking it one step at a time, trusting that everything would fall into place. It did.

As I got to the finish line, I heard a girl's voice come up from behind me. "Hey, let's do this. Let's finish strong," she said. We started speeding up some together. She went on to tell me that she'd been chasing me for two miles.

As we got even closer to the finish line, I was giving it everything I had, but I puttered out and she beat me. That's okay, though, for two reasons: 1) she wasn't in my race and 2) if I had not have sprinted that hard, I would be one rank lower overall because I beat the person behind me by two seconds. (Every second counts!)

I came in 119/128 overall and 4/4 in my age group. I really thought I would come in dead last, so I'm very pleased with my results.

Though I had called my own courage into question, even in the face of indisputable facts, conquering that swim and finishing that race made me realize that courage is never as out of reach as we usually think.