Tangent
Monday, April 30, 2007

Ok, so this post is not in the least Ironman-related....but, I just found out that I won a contest! This is a big deal in that I never win anything. (Seriously. I'm still scarred from the horrible losses I suffered in the cakewalk contests in grade school. Or spelling bees. Or bingo. Nothing. Ever. Until now.)

I submitted a piece I've been working on for a while to Harriet Brown's Mr. Wrong contest...and was one of two winners. It is not a big deal in terms of what I win (publicaiton on her site, a signed copy of the book, and a t-shirt), but as they say at the Oscars, it's nice just to be recognized. So, check it out if you'd like, with the told-you-so warning that it's pretty lengthy: http://harrietbrown.blogspot.com/2007/04/mr-wrong-again.html.

Posted by Erin 2:32 PM 2 comments

What I Have to Look Forward To
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

On the back of a book I stumbled accross, Becoming an Ironman -- accounts from regular Joes about their first Ironman experiences -- were the following quotes. I have mixed feeling about them, so I'll let them just speak for themselves.

"Ironman is similar to having your first baby -- being in labor that long and dealing with all the pain." ~ Susie Burgess

"I saw the marker for mile twenty five. What a beautiful sign. Nothing could stop me. If every muscle in my legs cramped I could still drag myself on my elbows for 1.2 miles." ~ Jane Fratesi

"All these people, with all these dreams, laying on the side of the road, moaning. I could feel their pain too and there was nothing I could do about it. I saw someone vomiting and thought, that could be me in half an hour, or five minutes." ~ Rick Olson

"I began to cry the last five hundred meters. The end was so overwhelming -- the feelings that have been numbed by training and racing catch up with you." ~ Katja Mayer

"One of the things an athlete must do before Ironman is to strengthen the body core. This won't take a membership to the gym. You can't get it in the weight room. I'm talking body core. You've got to get right with God because you're going to pray out there." ~ Elizabeth Johnson

"I was sure I was in Hell. All I needed was for someone to drip water drops on my head and shine a bright light in my eyes. It was no fun." ~ T.J. Murphy

"To tell the truth, it was not the exultant finish or peak experience I had hoped for. It felt more akin to being beaten and left for dead, but somehow having survived, and not knowing if it was for better or worse." ~ Dakin Ferris

"When I finished it became very clear to me, right away, that I needed to go back. There was more to explore." ~ Lyn Brooks

"At one point I could look -- as far as I could see -- not a soul, not a car, not a cyclist, not an aid station, not one damn sign of life and I turned around and looked back, and it was the same thing. I thought, 'How barren and desolate is this experience?'." ~ Scott Tinley

Posted by Erin 9:41 AM 1 comments

On the Road Again
Monday, April 23, 2007

Yesterday, the weather was finally nice enough to take my bike outdoors. Until now, I've been stuck on my trainer in front of the TV. Thanks to the suggestions from a few devoted fans of the show, I started watching LOST on my long, long weekend bike sessions and am now totally and completely addicted (and if by addicted you guess that I'm watching it before and after work, before I go to bed, and any other chance I get to be in front of the TV, and that I was kind of actually hoping that yesterday's thunderstorm warnings were for the afternoon so I wouldn't have to bike outside and could watch LOST instead, you'd be correct).

In any case, the first obstacle to biking outside was figuring out all of my gear. Unfortunately, the only piece of equipment that I bought last fall that came with any sort of instructions at all was my helmet. Yes, seriously. Bike computer? Nope. Air pump? Nada (They likely thought that a hand pump isn't that hard to operate and wouldn't need instructions. They were severely mistaken). Bike? Not a chance.

Now, just for the record, I've biked before. But I don't kid myself about being mechanically-inclined in the least. That's why, in the past, anything at all that needed doing with my bike (changing pedals, putting air in the tires, changing a tire, etc.), the handy people at the bike store took care of. For one easy payment of $35.99, I could have my bike once-overed and it would be ready to go.

The Ironman, however, has thrown a bit of a wrench in that practice on two different levels. First, on the course on race day, you are not allowed to accept any kind of outside help. You have to be completely self-sufficient and at one with your machine. If you blow a tire or drop a chain at mile 87, you better be ready to fix it, and have everything on you that's required to do so. Second, on weekend bike rides of 5, 6, or 7 hours that inch toward 100 miles, you cover a lot of ground. To put it simply, you're usually a hell of a long ways out of town, and away from anyone who might be able to help you. On a long stretch of farm road in Verona that sees more bikes than cars, it will help immensely if I can simply attend to whatever malfunction my bike is having and not have to interrupt my workout (which would require rescheduling the workout -- almost impossible to do when you think about the available time slots one has each week of 5+ continuous hours in daylight). All in all, it's just best that my bike and I get to know one another really, really, really well.

And that, as I mentioned before the above tangent, started in earnest yesterday.

We headed out on one of the city's myriad of bike paths starting at Machinery Row Bicycles and headed toward John Nolan and out toward the Wingra Creek path. It was beautiful out -- almost 80 and sunny -- but almost unbearably windy. This was a frightful combo for someone with, at best, rusty bike handling skills. Gobs and gobs of little kids with metallic ribbons streaming off their handlebars weaving all over the trail like drunken midgets...their moms or dads pulling those kid-trailers behind the bike and barely crawling along...and me, stuck behind them and almost getting blown over because I was almost at a standstill.

Before I knew it, though, I was out of Madison and headed into the country via Seminole Highway. Talk about a bike path! Freshly-paved road as far as you can see, wide shoulders, relatively flat. The only problem was that the wind seemed to increase in intensity and velocity out there. I was in a gear I normally only reserve for hills, and could barely make a go of it. I started to obsess about how maybe I wasn't in good enough shape, and maybe I hadn't prepared well enough on the trainer, and now how was I ever going to finish an Ironman? -- and that obsessing grew worse when a fellow biker with calves the size of my neck zoomed past me like I was standing still (which, really, I almost was).

Slightly depressed about my performance, I eventually turned around, only to find that with the wind at my back, I had no problems whatsoever. I clipped along on the big chain ring, and by the end of the ride, was even spending a fair amount of time in my aerobars (until, of course, I hit the city bike trails teeming with the drunken midgets again).

I never before understood biking, and why/how people could love it oh-so-much. Even at the start of this little Ironman undertaking, I told myself that learning to bike would be great for my knees as I grow older. I never expected to become a real, honest-to-god biker, but I think I might be on the edge of a conversion. Running is freeing in a gritty, painful, make-your-body-suffer-to-free-your-mind sort of way. Biking is pure adrenaline...similar to ski racing, but more fulfilling. Clipping along, seeing the scenery move past you, knowing that your own two legs are powering the trip. It's a great feeling. Even better, I discovered yesterday, is going downhill in aero position. Wheeeeeeeeeeee!

After I returned home -- 3 hours after I had left -- I switched to my runners, donned a hat and my Ipod, picked up Leonard, and hit the road for what was supposed to be an easy 2-miler (which felt like anything but at the onset)...wishing all the while I was still on the bike.

Posted by Erin 9:19 AM 4 comments

There's No "I" in Team

The other morning, I was rubbing my eyes awake when I felt something that's never, ever there: eyebrow stubble.

It shocked me to find, looking in the mirror, little stubs of hair coming in where they shouldn't. Shocked me to discover that my eyebrows looked like poorly-trimmed hedges. It shocked me because I am a fastidious plucker. Plucking my eyebrows is a part of my daily routine, like brushing my teeth or shaving my legs (which I do daily, or sometimes if warranted, twice daily). It relaxes me. Gives me a sense of self-satisfaction. I like doing it so much, in fact, that I haven't had my brows waxed in years. How many, I'm not sure. It's been that long.

So how to explain that I've let my eyebrows go to this point? Easy. It's the circus that is the Ironman. Or, more accurately, the circus that is my life because of the Ironman.

I have no time to go to the grocery store, no time to clean my apartment, and no time to do laundry. I rarely have time to talk on the phone, and conversations are either a) short, b) en route to swimming or back, or c) while I'm logging 4+ hour bike rides in my living room. I barely have time to work, what with all the working-out. Meeting up with people for drinks or seeing a movie is so far down the list of things I don't have time to do that I can't even see them.

I always knew this would be the most miserable part of it all. It's nearly impossible to have a life when you're working on becoming an Ironman. It's all part of the hard-ness of the experience, I think. Ironman, after all, isn't just about race day. It's about all of the sacrifices that are made each hour, each day, each week, and each month leading up to race day.

But these aren't just my sacrifices.

There's a reason why, when you watch an Ironman competition, that you see group after group of families and friends lined up in all sorts of weather, cheering on their Ironman-to-be with a mix of smiles and tears on their faces. It's why you see that same mix on the faces of the competitors. The smiles come from a sense of community and spirit, the tears from pride at what is being accomplished...together.

The thing is, no one does Ironman alone. It's impossible to do so. I always watched fathers and mothers running across the finish line at IM Wisconsin with their brood of kids in tow, wondering how in the world they did it all -- being a parent, being married, working, and training?!? What I didn't know was that it was because of their little clan -- not in spite of -- that they were able to accomplish all they did.

I'm not married. I have no brood. But I do have my own team that helps me keep on keeping on.

There's my "Chief of Stuff" who has all but taken responsibility for my life by doing the following at times:

• Grocery shopping;
• Cooking;
• Laundry;
• Doing long runs and sprint workouts with me;
• Keeping Leonard company and entertained;
• Helping me with barn chores so I can finish and start my Sunday long runs sooner;
• Letting me listen to his Ipod on long runs when mine quits because I forgot to charge it;
• Massaging my feet when they hurt so badly after post-weekend workouts that I contemplate taking Vicodin to curb the pain;
• Buying my favorite flavors of Cliff Bars or Gatorade when available;
• Bringing me food I can eat on my bike (namely, quesadillas), when my workout spans dinner;
• Planning social outings around my schedule and (the best part) planning them for me; and
• Never once complaining about the time this endeavor takes up and how bone-tired it makes me all the time.

I also have many Deputy Chiefs of Stuff -- my sister, brother-in-law, mom, dad, aunts, uncles, friends, and bosses/co-workers -- who, even though they aren't in close enough proximity to assist in the day-to-day operations of my life have been indispensable on this journey so far. They have provided and continue to provide support, encouragement, kind words, and an unyielding patience with my schedule. They worry about me. They watch my buddy, Leonard, and make sure he's happy. They send me articles or tips they've heard that might be useful, and hook me up with others who have undertaken this crazy race. They come and visit me, or are understanding when I can't make a proposed trip, because they know I just can't finagle any visits for the foreseeable future. They tell me they are proud.

Yesterday I was finishing up a run after a 3+ hr bike ride (a workout that was cut short from what it was supposed to be) while my Chief of Stuff was at the grocery store stocking up on food for a cookout that night -- a cookout we were having so I could pretend I had a bit of a social life...food that would already be prepared by the time I was out of the shower and the first guests were rolling in.

That this undertaking is a selfish one is not lost on me. I think about it often. Every single day, I am humbled by the patience of the people around me, by the sacrifices that they've made on my behalf. I am humbled and I am grateful.

Only a bit over four months to go on this journey. So far it has been difficult, but manageable and good -- and for that, I have my team to thank.

Posted by Erin 7:38 AM 0 comments

Hurts So Good
Thursday, April 19, 2007

This week, I had what could potentially be the best massage of my entire life (which is, albeit, a really short list).

I was formerly of the opinion that all massages -- or masseuses -- were created equal. That a massage was sort of like pizza in the sense that even if it's bad it's still pretty good.

That was before I met Gregory.

He started off with my back, kneading and pressing his fingers under my shoulder blades, holding pressure points until, at one point, I felt my arm start to go numb. I reasoned, though, that it was my back, and my back is perpetually hurting me. There are a lot of problem areas to work with back there. A lot of tender spots to work out.

But then he moved onto my arms, and it honestly felt like he was massing down into my bone, and not in a feel-good, deep-massage type way. He let go and moved around the table. "Just one more arm to go," I told myself, not realizing what I was in for when he got to my legs.

As Gregory seemed to be trying to separate my shin and glute muscles from the bone, I clenched the table with both hands. I wondered if involuntarily contracting the muscles not being worked on and not being able to un-curl my toes out of discomfort was counter-productive to the idea of a massage in the first place.

Finally, mercifully, it was over. Gregory told me that my back actually opened up nicely, although my legs were a bit of a mess. "I'll really get into your calves next time and work them harder," he told me.

I gulped. And then I considered not making another appointment. Or possibly sedating myself for the next one. Because, for the love of all that is holy, I don't know that I've ever signed up for that kind of pain when it wasn't a medically-necessary procedure (Well, other than the Ironman itself. But since that's still a ways off in the future, this tops the list for now).

I walked out of my appointment feeling all wet-noodle-ish and sore. And that night at swimming, I found a little thumb-sized bruise on my thigh. I had been massaged to the point of bruising! That made me smile. I definitely got my money's worth, and the way I've felt since, my body is the better for it.

Posted by Erin 12:09 PM 0 comments

In the YMCA Locker Room
Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Ours is a culture that idealizes thinness. From movie stars to magazine models to constant advice from morning television programs and women's magazines about how to loose weight, keep weight off, or not gain weight in the first place, it's all but impossible to escape the thin credo.

Consider these statistics:

• Most fashion models are thinner than 98% of American women. Twenty years ago, the average model weighed 8 percent less than the average woman; today’s models weigh 23 percent less.
• 69 percent of Playboy models and 69 percent of Miss America contestants weighed 15 percent or more below the expected weight for their age and height category. Fifteen percent below one's expected weight is part of the criteria for an anorexia diagnosis.
• A woman with Barbie-doll proportions would have a back too weak to support the weight of her upper body, and her body cavity would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver and a few centimeters of bowel.
• 42 percent of elementary school girls between the 1st and 3rd grades want to be thinner. That number jumps to 76 percent by age 17, and and 86 percent for adult women.
• 45 percent of medically-underweight women think they're fat.
• It is estimated that the diet industry alone is worth $100 billion a year.
• Plastic surgery is the fastest-growing, and one of the largest, medical specialties.
• It's been estimated that young women today see more images of beautiful women in one day than their mothers saw through their entire adolescence, and that viewing pictures of television/movie stars and magazine models has a direct correlation with body dissatisfaction.

Sound overblown? Guys, just have a direct conversation with the women in your life -- mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives -- and ask them if they're happy with the way they look. Some of us will answer honestly -- that, yes, we want to be thinner. Skinny, even, if there are wishes being granted. Others will couch it as wanting to be in better shape, or that we'd just like to or need to eat better. But beneath that, the large majority of women in this country have an overall dissatisfaction with their bodies.

I am no stranger to this. I first tired dieting when I was 11. At 5'2" and less than 120 lbs., I spent my high school years dreading having to don a skin-tight GS suit for ski races or breeches for horse shows, and my college years in fear of gaining the dreaded "Freshman 15." These days, I wish that, in most pictures, my face was just a little less round, my thighs a little less full, my legs a little less short. And don't even get me started on pictures of me in a swimsuit.

I know that I am "fine" -- that I'm not overweight, that I'm at least average if not slightly below (depending on what criteria you're using), that my fears are largely unfounded.

But I also know that I am not alone.

Get any group of women together, hang around long enough, and you'll hear phrases like, "I just need to loose another 10 pounds," or, "I feel fat," or the go-to standard, "Do I look fat in this?" Listen to any woman describe another woman, and the first descriptor will almost always be related to the fact that she's either thin or not thin (guilty as charged). There are exceptions, sure. But even with groups of women who are exceptions -- there are often exceptions to those exceptions (follow?).

So, what to do about these body woes? Stop shopping for clothes? Stop watching TV or movies? Stop reading Shape, or Cosmo, or (gasp!) US Weekly? Perhaps that would be a start. Because all of the knowledge in the world that every one of those pics has been airbrushed does not make you feel better after viewing page upon page of 6-foot, 115 lb., six-pack-ab-having models. But I really, really, really enjoy my weekly dose of "Stars -- They're Just Like Us!" and brain candy.

Since starting a master's swim program, though, I think I've found the answer.

First of all, I've found that the better shape I'm in, the better I feel. And regardless if the scale has moved at all -- in either direction -- the less I care about how I look or how much I weigh. I don't work out because I want to loose weight. I work out to feel strong, because it takes the guilt out of eating, and because it lets me escape from constantly caring about an unattainable image and number on a scale.

And second, I've discovered that a trip to the YMCA women's locker room after the Master's swim team practice can clear up all sorts of misgivings that there's any such thing as a perfect body. The bodies range from stick thin to past obese. There are heavier women with tight, toned muscles and attractive breasts. There are skinny women with cellulite and boobs that hang under each arm. And there's an entire range that falls in between. But not one single one of them even comes close to the ideal purported by today's media. Nudity seems the great equalizer, and damn is it ever refreshing!

I never feel better -- for both the first and second reasons cited -- than I do after Master's swimming. So good, in fact, that it's an experience I wish for all women I know...and those I don't. If everyone had a similar opportunity -- a place they could go to see that without makeup and designer clothes and airbrushing, none of us look like the girls in the pictures or those walking the red carpet -- I have a feeling that body-image issues would quickly become a thing of the past.

And wouldn't that be a wonderful world.

Posted by Erin 12:01 PM 2 comments

Massages are for Winners!
Wednesday, April 04, 2007

That's what my "Chief of Stuff" told me yesterday when I said that I'd always thought massages were indulgences for special occasions, the rich, or wusses -- that when it comes to sports and athletics, the tough get chiropractic work done, or none at all. (Where do I get these ideas???)

After yesterday, I couldn't agree more.

I am not usually one for papering. I don't have the patience (or raw material to work with, being an ex-nail biter) for manicures. I do the yearly pedicure solely out of a belief that one has the responsibility to get one's toes presentable for sandal weather and nothing more, often encouraging the pedicurist to skip the froufrou foot/leg massage and lotions. I haven't gotten my hair cut/colored since December -- not because I've made the conscious choice to grow it out (although now at this point, I might as well), but because I just don't want to spend the time -- or have the time to spend -- on doing that right now (One thing that training three to five hours a day for an Ironman will do is make you evaluate must-do, should-do, and can-do items on your to-do list -- the last two categories often just get dropped altogether).

Naturally, I lumped massages into the papering category. All the candles, soothing music, scented oils. I had only had a massage two other times -- one this past winter at a place that is truly heaven on earth (seriously, if you live near Madison, try it. Even if you don't, fly in and try it...you won't regret it for a second), and the other in grad school because a friend of a friend of a friend was a new masseuse (read: not all that good) and in trying to establish a clientele, was offering massages for $25.

The day before yesterday (Monday) I had an intense soreness in my back that started below my shoulder blades and radiated up to the base of my skull. It was sort of like my back needed to crack but was stuck. As one might imagine, four hours on a bike that night didn't help matters at all, and by the time I crawled into bed, I was in serious pain. Sleep came in spurts, as the only position where I didn't hurt was lying on my back and I can never, ever sleep like that.

Enter Kate, the masseuse. After 30 minutes of Kate kneading and stretching my upper back and neck I was -- although not completely healed -- markedly improved. I could turn my neck without also turning my whole body, my headache was gone, and I was able to get my bike, run, and swim workouts in after work last night virtually pain-free.

I am now a true believer. And I'm going back for more. As often as my bank account will allow.

In "Beautiful Girls," one of the main characters, Paul, says, "A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you've been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man - promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it's going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That's all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels." (gawd I love that movie!)

After yesterday, that's how I feel about massages -- promise of a better day, a greater hope. They are nothing short of miraculous, and I'm now an addict, plain and simple. Paul can take his models . . . I'll take my massages. Each to his own.

Posted by Erin 7:38 AM 0 comments