Inspirations

"The last 4.7 were considered flat and easy- relative to some of the other legs of the route. But after 195 miles of running, nothing seemed particularly flat and easy to me. Where did this zest to keep going come from?

Running has taught me that the pursuit of a passion matters more than the passion itself. Immerse yourself in something deeply and with heartfelt intensity-- continually improve, never give up--this is fulfillment, this is success."

~ Dean Karnazes

Marathon Man by Dean Karnazes is an awesomely inspirational book. For this post, I want to talk about my initial and ongoing inspirations for my own passionate pursuit and in the process, maybe it will spark something a little deeper for you beyond the next PR.
I love and appreciate my life as it is. I was fortunate enough to pursue an education and a career doing something I absolutely love. I am fortunate to work with some truly amazing people and athletes. It's fun and I truly enjoy watching the training process unfold for athletes as all the pieces come together. I have the same enjoyment when the light bulb clicks on for a student and they finally get the difficult concept and confidence that comes with it. At only 36 years of age I have achieved a lifetime goal of a fulfilling career in biology and sports science and if it weren't for my brother Greg, I may not have traveled down this path to begin with.
Gregory is 2 years younger than me and we fought like crazy with each other growing up, until about high school age when we truly became good friends. My brother played soccer from the time he was 4 all through high school and was an excellent starting goalie for Division II Virginia Wesleyan. I was a gymnast from the age of 3 t0 18 and I really got the bug for cardio training during my senior year in high school. I wanted to be in better shape and I remember vividly, sucking wind as my brother half dragged me around the neighborhood for a run. He was fast, the pace was fast, but for some strange reason I loved that lung and leg burning sensation and I went out with him quite a few times, especially on the off days from the high impact aerobic classes I used to ride my bike to. Greg was already into riding at that point, loved road bikes, I had a Motobecane 10 speed but as soon as I got my license the bike was shelved. I was a junior at Ithaca during my brother's freshman year at Virginia. He was loving it there, the school, the soccer and then something weird happened.
During the winter indoor season, he came down from a goal save and something in his knee went. He came home and mom took him for an MRI, they suspected a torn meniscus but what came back was shocking and terrifying, it was a tumor. After the biopsy and the malignant diagnosis, my 18 year old brother was forced to come home from school on a medical leave. The rare tumor known as a Ewing Sarcoma, began in the soft tissue in his knee and was growing into the bone in his tibia. It was scary, very. Emergency surgery followed suit and the tumor was removed. So was three quarters of his calf muscle, most of the tibial bone at the proximal end and the nerves in his leg were scraped. For awhile they weren't sure if he would be able to keep his leg below the knee at all. Chemo was the first option and for a year my brother endured brutal chemotherapy treatments. I was into my senior year at Ithaca and Greg used to drive up with an old boyfriend of mine at the time and hang out for the weekend. We had fun, I think it cheered him up and I really enjoyed having that time with him especially since my parents insisted that schooling go on as planned.
After college I was looking for something to do team-wise. I was always involved in a sport, I rowed crew for Ithaca and wanted to stay in shape. My Uncle Louis, head coach of Syracuse Swimming was involved in triathlon at the time, even competing in the Mighty Hamptons of Old when it was a 10 mile run back then. It sounded good so I asked my brother if I could borrow his Bianchi road bike and he never even flinched. He loved that bike but gave it to me to ride while he was still undergoing treatments. My brother Greg is just about 6 feet tall so the bike must have been at least a 56-58, I am all of 5'7" so I think I jammed the seat down as low as it could go and it was a good thing I was a gymnast because it was a stretch to reach the old school Scott clip on aerobars. I decided to train for the Oyster Bay triathlon with my friend Danielle (see the urbanwellness link on the right). We were both personal training at the time, fresh off of our Exercise Sci degrees from Ithaca and enjoyed getting together for the swims, rides and runs. Silly girls and totally unaware that you actually needed to sign up for a triathlon ahead of time, we were all set to go to Oyster Bay that morning! Denied our entry we did our own version of the race minus the swim and set our sights on the Mighty Hamptons Triathlon. I remember trying to increase the length of my bike rides and 25 miles seemed impossible when even 15 was really tough!!!! Since my mother was with my brother for chemo in NYC, my grandfather drove out to my first race with me. I finished it happily, gathered up my stuff and left. Little did I know that I actually won the 18-24 year old age group until someone I knew from the gym told me I had won an award! I was hooked! If it weren't for my brother and his generosity and encouragement, I don't think I would have been able to do the sport. I rode that steel, too big Bianchi for 3 years before I got the bike pictured on my profile and have met many really great people on this journey and I owe it all to my brother for getting me started.
Greg, you are still an inspiration. A cancer survivor since the early 90's, my brother has endured many operations from the side effects of the initial surgery to reconstruct his leg. As you can imagine, not having the large majority of your lower leg is difficult on his heel as his gait is thrown off and his lower back has suffered for it. Greg also has permanent nerve damage and has tremendous sensitivity even to the touch yet he still pushed on and is an awesome cyclist to this day, training and racing down in Boca Raton. He will be completing the Livestrong Challenge 100 mile Philadelphia ride this year at the end of August and I plan on being there to support him in this next challenge.
My family has been severely impacted by cancer. You know my brothers story now and he is a survivor and a constant inspiration to me when I need a reality check as to what pain actually is. My 44 year old father was taken from my family at the time my brother was battling his cancer by a pulmonary embolism. It is a long story for another post, but when we received the autopsy we found out the my father had malignant colon cancer that had spread to all his organs at the time and we didn't know. My grandmother died when I was 16 after a valiant battle with ovarian cancer. My Aunt and Godmother is currently in a furious battle with multiple myeloma; a cancer of the platelets. For those of you that are Xterra fans, Pro-triathlete Jamie Whitmore was diagnosed with a rare form of sarcoma just this past year and I feel for her because she reminds me so much of my brother's battle and you can read more of her story here: http://www.jamiewhitmore.com/
For all of these reasons and for the inspiration these special people have given me, I am running the Chicago marathon for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. If you have not been able to donate to this great cause yet, or you forgot (the hamster wheel is always spinning here, so I know how busy you are), please consider clicking the link up top and contributing to my goal of raising $3500 or more to fight this horrific disease. I would appreciate anything that you could give and I thank my good friends that have contributed to this charity for helping me to help others. Also please check out Jamie Whitmore's website and lend your support to a phenomenal triathlete in for the fight against cancer.
I started with an inspirational quote and I will end with one by Joe Louis: "You only live once, but if you work it right, once is enough".

The point of diminishing returns, stories and more Part III

Continuing on the theme of "how much is too much", I want to help you recognize the signs of the "point of diminishing returns" during training. To do this, I will illustrate an example of myself this week and I will also encourage you to read Danielle Sullivan's blog for a pro's experience during a race and hopefully you will be able to think of similar circumstances along the lines of your own training and possible triggers that may lead to a less than stellar day of training or racing.

We all have bad days, its inevitable. As athletes, there is a necessity in learning how to push yourself past certain levels of pain and discomfort. The key is learning the difference between quality training pain and discomfort and complete muscle exhaustion that can lead to staleness and overtraining if not recognized and rectified.
Last week, I had a great training week. My long rides and runs are steadily increasing in time and intensity, and I fit in all the quality key workouts during the week. I wrapped up the week with a long ride last Sunday where I managed to average 19 mph by myself in the wind out here and capped it with a 20 minute race pace swim in the pool. Training while enjoyable is a physical stress on the body. Last week I also had a mentally stressful week dealing with ridiculous political power trip stress at the lab on top of trying to get unmotivated students to focus on their work with an upcoming regents in a few weeks. Mental stress can be very draining as many of you are all too familiar with. First, the physiologist and biology teacher in me will give you a little background knowledge on stress.
Any stressor releases and increased amount of cortisol in the body. Cortisol, in small amounts can have a positive effect for quick energy needs (fight or flight for survival), heightened awareness, and a quick burst of increased immunity to help the body maintain homeostasis. If the body's stress response system is constantly activated, there is not enough recovery time from this heightened state which leads to chronic stress. When a person is in a chronic state of stress cortisol can have detrimental effects. Prolonged increases of cortisol in the bloodstream can lead to: impaired mental function, decreased immunity, high blood sugar, high blood pressure and increased abdominal fat. Besides an increase in cortisol from daily stress, strenuous physical activity also releases large amounts of cortisol. If you are dealing with increased amounts of stress at work or home, add a few strenuous workouts without recovery, you have a recipe for achieving the "point of diminishing returns" from your workouts! So, you've all at some time heard that recovery is equally as important as the workout and now you have a biological explanation to go with it.
Back to my week. I rested Monday but for some reason did not sleep very well Monday night (hmmm- work stress??) . Tuesday I ran a hard 7 miles averaging an 8:20 pace (this is a hard run for me at this time) and Wednesday I worked a 12 hour day between teaching and consulting at the lab. For those of you with children at home, you know the day doesn't stop just because you punched the clock at work. I also managed to fit in a quick 45 min on the trainer. Thursday I got up and went to masters swim. Last week- great week, swimming fast and feeling good. This week- the point of diminishing returns set in. Pollen count is high which is always tough for an asthmatic like myself, my immune system, even with the allergy dugs is working overtime. The pool water was hot and they refinished the varnish on the gym floors at St. Joes so with the air filled with the paint like smell it should have dawned on me that I would have a little oxygen debt to contend with. Within the first 10 minutes I knew I was in trouble. When you feel like you just can't get enough air on the warm up, it makes for a difficult time going at warp speed for an 800. I made it through the 2 first sets but the level of fatigue was mounting and I cut it short at 45 minutes. Did I feel a weird guilt at not finishing the hour? YES! Do those 15 minutes really make a difference when you are tired and not recovered? NO! I just reminded myself of that all day as I dragged myself through the work day depleted. Recognizing that I was teetering on the edge, I capped dinner with 2 guiness and went to bed early. I felt much much better on Friday!! I ran 7, hilly at 9 minute pace; got some yoga in and another good nights sleep on Friday. The extra rest went along way. I biked with the boys on Saturday, its no "C" level ride going out with Dave, Larry Costantino, Charlie Rey, Gary, Bob and his friend Scott. Marty joined us for the first time as well. I was good until the pace crept up to 23-24 mph- it's too much for me too hold with only a month's worth of solid bike training. Dave came back for me but I told him to go, I was red lining. I had made it an hour which I was happy with, with that group and I needed to conserve a bit for the additional 2 hours I was putting in. The route we followed through Hampton Bays and Westhampton worked well; the guys took some longer turns and I was able to cross sect with them and pop in the ride and hold on until the legs put out all the power they had. I bonked hard at 2 hours 20 minutes- probably because I didn't get in enough nutrition during the first 50 minutes of the "hang on at all costs" pace with the boys. Bonking occurs infrequently for me but I knew I would get though it, all bonks can come on without warning but they almost always abate. Mine just happened to occur over the last half hour towards home going uphill into the wind- what a time to feel bad! After a gel and a shift to a lighter cog, I felt better in 20 minutes and was actually able to get a good push going for the remaining hills.
Today I got in a sold 11 miles- running my benchmark up to "the other bald hill" (see previous post). This time I ran up through the ridiculous hilly woods to the college on the white trail. Crossed 51 and ran up to bald hill. This time I was able to run the whole thing- so my fitness is coming up. I'm encouraged. I'm also rested and off for 5 days so no work stress and lots of sleep go a long way. The moral of the story is listen to your body!!!! It will tell you when you need recovery time. Pay attention to the signs of overtraining and when you see the drop in performance from previous levels it means you need to take a day off or two and cut the intensity. Not sure what to do? Call me; after all the coach is here to take the guess work out for you. It's very easy to rearrange a schedule to keep you on track towards your goal races. The extra day off can pay huge dividends in better quality workouts and recovery. On that note, I'm off to bed!

How much is too much? Question of the week (Thanks Reed!)

When you are going through hell, keep going.
~ Winston Churchill
A few months ago, a client jokingly asked me, "ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME????" The answer to that is always "no" but will I always work you hard? Yes!!! If you want to improve, if you want to go faster or longer or both, you have to be willing to work hard. For every workout? No- but that doesn't mean the easy to moderate aerobic workouts are a cake walk either. Quality over quantity with me always but how much is too much? How do you know if you are over the line? How much threshold training do you need to improve? These are great questions and I want to devote a few blog posts to these topics. Todays focus will be on signs of over doing or the dreaded...overtraining.
Dean Karnazes, an elite ultramarathoner writes in his book "The UltraMarathon Man" ( A great read!) about the Western States 100 mile Endurance run:
"Never before had I been so challenged by a single pursuit. Nor had I ever been so captivated and engaged. The training continued more fervently than ever, and I continued treading the delicate line between recklessness and responsibility, never letting on how much time and effort were being poured into this single dream".
It doesn't matter if your single pursuit is 3 miles of running or finishing an ironman, or multi-day cycling stage races, your training is fervent, engaging and challenging! I do train you as much as I can on the delicate line between massive benefit and over the limit and that is where the communication between coach and athlete is the most important aspect, as well as recovery!!!!
So how do you know when you are overdoing it, aka pushing the red line a little too long? These very quick checks and simple signs are your body's way of telling you to give it a break, take a rest day or two, and call your coach ASAP:

• Chronic fatigue, continually drained of energy
  
• Moodiness and irritability
• Poor or restless sleep
• Performance drop- inability to achieve previous training levels
  
• Leg and joint soreness that does not abate
• Loss of enthusiasm for training
• Decreased immunity (an increase in colds)
• Increased resting heart rate upon waking by 10-20 beats
• Increase in muscle strains and injuries
  
• An obsessive compulsive need to exercise even when you are feeling really bad

Recovery from your training is equally as important as the time you spend training. If you don't allow your body to absorb and adapt to the training you have done, you invite increased risk of injury, illness and staleness to your workouts and a performance drop in racing. If you are experiencing a few of these signs and symptoms or you aren't quite sure how much is too much for specific workouts, then I'm your girl, let me help you decide :)
On this note as well, if you have a specific question about training, heart rate zones, watts, speed training, exercise nutrition, ask away! This is a great forum that I would like to use for this purpose (as well as flower stabbing and hitch hiking incidents- you have to laugh at life sometimes!)
j

The new, a pirate, stories and more Part II

What a weekend! Congratulations to Stefan and Greg, both turned in really solid performances at the ridiculous Endurosport Half Ironman at Harriman on Saturday. For any of you that have ridden the Bear Mountain Bike Course, you know how hard those loops are. Swim in 50 degree water, bike those 3+ loops and then run a half in the mountains. Yikes! Stefan not only had a solid race but was the only other finisher to go under 5 hours (the other was a pro only minutes in front of him) and he had the fastest run of the day (1:27!!!) to finish 2nd overall. AWESOME!! You rock Stefan! Anthony went out to Temecula for the Xterra West Championship and finished fourth in a stacked super competitive race in the 102 degree heat!!! Sinead completed the China stage race, racing pro again and you can check out her blog, there is a link on the right for the details. I am really psyched because she will be racing pro at the Xterra East championship in Richmond as well as in Utah and she has some great races lined up with her Champion Systems team. For those of you that have not had the pleasure of meeting Sam Cila yet, he's a great guy and an injured Iraq soldier that is being sponsored by CAF and Operation rebound. CAF flew him down to the Disney 70.3 this weekend to support the team and participate in a press conference. Sam has a truly inspiring story of survival and I am thrilled to be working with him. Last year was his first year as a triathlete and this year he is tackling bigger goals and its great to see him receive the wonderful sponsorship. While I was talking with Sam about what was going on down in Orlando pre race, I was putting the dishes away in the kitchen. Dave and I keep a steel compost bucket right above the dishwasher and there were upended flowers in them. While talking and reaching over to put a dish in the dishwasher, a flower stem poked me right in the left eye. It hurt, I cursed, hung up with Sam and had Dave look at it. He didn't really notice anything. Over the course of the evening, it became more irritated, I flushed it out. By Sunday night I was in pain with eye movement and when I woke up this morning, I looked like this:Lid swollen, fluid underneath the eye, busted capillaries and completely bloodshot. So no eye makeup this morning. I went to work with my specs on to reduce the blurred strain and had to explain how I poked myself with a flower stem to all 5 classes and colleagues. By 4th period I was completely light sensitive, and in pain and luckily, my friend Ron's mother works for an ophthalmologist so he was able to get me in right away. I turns out that the flower stem gave me a HUGE scratch across my cornea and there is an ulcer underneath as well. Dr. Lessing explained to me that flowers are often loaded with bacteria and fungus so I have antibiotic drops going in 4 times a day and a pupil dilator to take the pressure off my iris contracting in response to the light. I have to keep the pupil dilated to prevent scar tissue. This is ridiculous! She can't give me the anti inflammatory drops until the antibiotic works, something about the steroid conflicting with the antibiotic in this case so for the next 4 days I look like this. Arrgh matey's!!! The patch looks ridiculous, but a bright room is like torture for the dilated eye. Thank God I am teaching the nervous system with a slideshow tomorrow so the lights will be off! The pain comes and goes but when it shows up like when I move my eye suddenly or I take the patch off an my pupil tries to contract its like someone sticking a very sharp blade directly in the eye. So, no workout for me today but that's fine, I got in a great weekend and I'll split run the long run tomorrow to get the mileage in. If you want to see a pirate running the track tomorrow- head over to Westhampton Beach HS track at 5 pm, you can meet Sam to!

I hit the beach on the bike yesterday. I know that there was a large group riding from Babylon to Montauk on Saturday, no doubt on the main roads but if you ever want to get off the beaten track and ride with me or Dave, there is so much more to offer. I rode from my house into Speonk, the bay is on my right the whole way, its beautiful. Cross the bridge and down to Cupsogue. The wind is always in your face that way but it rocks coming back with an excellent tailwind into Quogue and then through some of the back roads to the golf course road, some hill repeats and I was home in 2 hours. It was the first beach trip since the fall for me and there was no beach, holy erosion! I'm sure it was high tide but the ocean was up under the decking at Cupsogue. It's a gorgeous spot. I've got to start bringing my little digital with me. Let's ride!

Old and new, stories and more Part I

This has been an extremely busy and exciting week! I have had really high points and really low points this week and I look forward to sharing them with you. So much has gone on that I will end up breaking this into several posts because I have so much to talk about: training, fatigue, coaching, the ex phys world, teaching (I went to THE BEST conference this week!). If you look over to the different headings on the right, my 2008 tentative race schedule is posted. The priority event this year was starred because I wasn't sure if I was going to get in and I would need to revert to Plan B- Steamtown marathon, but I just received word today that I have been accepted as part of the Lance Armstrong Foundation team to run the Chicago Marathon on October 12th and I am really excited to have the opportunity to run for a cause that has hit home very close to me and my family. I hope you will be able to help me in my quest and I will have more information to come. I have not run a marathon since 2005 coming off the bike at Lake Placid Ironman, and the task seems daunting! I never even flinch about the right course of action for training an athlete, when it comes to training yourself, however, its a different story and I will be relying on Dave's experience more than ever this year to help keep fear and uncertainty at bay. I have run 5 marathons total: 3 during Ironman and 2 alone (NYC and Disney) and I have only done one completely healthy and that was the first year I got into long distance racing, which was by mistake! So I am going to give you a little history about me and what propelled me into coaching.
Dave and I met in 1995 while swimming for Rick Ferriola at the Y in Mastic. We swam in the same lane then up until about 2001, and you all know his history and if you don't, read here:
http://vnews.ironmanlive.com/vnews/1016718482

His history is very closely entwined with mine, we are truly life partners in every sense. It is now 7 years later and it's taken me that long to get back in that same lane again! (see the previous post). Dave and I didn't start dating until 1999 and it happened almost by accident. We were swimming at Holtsville Y at this point and happened to be hanging out at the end of practice talking with Rick. It was a few days before the Firecracker 8k in Southampton, I mentioned I was doing it and Dave invited me to ride from his house, run the 8k and then ride back. Having never done this before it sounded like fun so we made plans to train. I remember finishing happily right at 40 minutes, thrilled that I ran that pace off the 20 mile bike and we were standing around talking with a few other friends (Jean Hazelton and Brian Barrett) who assumed that we were dating and invited us to hang out with some other couples. That was really the first spark. Dave declined, he was going over to Davis Park to watch a friends band, he invited me and the rest is history. We fell in love that day at the beach watching Henry's band; got back home around 2am, and still got up for masters practice the next day!!! Rick used to joke afterwards that there was "something in the water" at the pool, you could just tell how smitten we were with each other. We still are.
Over the summer, Dave wanted to try doing a half ironman and we ended up racing in Boston, a really weird Hawaii qualifier at the time: The Bay State Triathlon; a 1 mile swim and a loop bike course that you had to complete like 13 laps of (with a nasty downhill and tight right corner turn at the bottom, in the rain!) and a 2 loop run. Dave finished in the top ten and it was really a test to see how well he would do racing long, both of us had been strictly sprint and olympic distance triathletes, this was right before the Ironman craze took over. Over the next winter, Our good friend Ron Weiss called us up and said "I signed up for this race, Ironman Florida and you should sign up". It would be the second year for the race there. Dave and I checked out the website and he took the plunge (after a couple of glasses of red wine) and was in. Since he and I trained together all the time in the pre-Van days, I said what the heck, I'll be training with you anyway and signed up myself. It was nuts! I had never even ridden 50 miles on the bike back then, never run longer than 9 miles and here I was signing up for an Ironman, it was crazy. I was most worried about the marathon and when I did my first IM, my strategy was just to finish. I stopped at the port o pots on the bike when I had to pee, rode comfortably, ran the first 13 and then walked every aid station of the second half and I finished a respectable 12:37 for a first IM with absolutely no endurance background. I was a rower in college, a sprint sport! This was a monumental milestone for me and I will never forget it. The emotional toll is also high when crossing the finish line at IM and it was particularly sweet, and only made sweeter because Dave proposed to me there, at the finish. Remember, I finished in 12:37, Dave however finished in 9:44 so he had plenty of time to go back to the room, shower, change and get the ring! It was one of the best moments of my life and he also told me he qualified for Kona, which was his dream and we couldn't have been happier.
1999 was also a significant year for me because I finished my first masters degree in Exercise Physiology and I was eager to put all of this knowledge into a practical application. What I learned: I could and did write an effective training plan for Ironman and I did it across levels of fitness. I was a novice to endurance sports. Dave was a seasoned marathoner at this point. Our training plans were different because of that and I can tell you that it is the most important aspect of training anyone. Not everyone can follow a generic plan because each person comes from a different level of fitness, different injury history, and has different expectations and goals. Beware of the cookie cutters, they are out there in force. I don't blame them. They have a plan that works for themselves, but that's it, not everyone can fit your mold. A good coach intuitively knows what their athletes can handle and this comes from a tremendous knowledge base in physiology, not just race experience. It's an important distinction to consider. When Dave won his age group at Kona in 2001 that cinched my coaching abilities and alot of people starting asking Dave who his coach was-me!
So, I feel like a novice again. Sure, I have consistently raced a half ironman every year with the exception of 2006, run half marathons and achieved PR's but I have shied away from marathon and IM distance due to significant ITB issues. I have conquered those issues, my shoulder is good and I am looking forward to specific marathon training for the first time!
After that first IMF, I was super psyched to do the next one; then we got pregnant with Van so Ironman wasn't on the horizon for a couple of years. Eager to get back in shape, I got in through the lottery for the NYC marathon right after Van was born. I was a little too eager. I ran to the best of my ability at that time but came down with the nastiest issue of Iliotibial Band Syndrome that plagued me for 2 years; through IMLP '03 and the Disney marathon '04. For both races I did extensive PT, chiropractic, acupuncture, whatever I could to get through it. I had only 7 weeks of run training for IMLP in '03 and 8 weeks before the Disney marathon in '04. I went back to LP in 2005 but still had trouble with the ITB and only had one long run before that Ironman. I am amazed at what I accomplished on very little run training (that is the blend of the right amount of intensity and recovery: another blog topic to come). After 2005 I swore off anything longer than 13 miles of running until I could be completely healthy. Yoga and PT with Sinead solved my ITB issues, I know when I am pushing my limits now and instead of training through the signals my IT Bands give me, I immediately switch over to riding and give the running legs a rest. That and a steady does of yoga 1-2x per week has kept me injury free. There is alot to be said for the importance of core training. That reminds me, I have a great article I wrote on that and will post it here. So, healthy legs, some good triathlon cross training and I am looking forward training the way I know how to train the athletes I work with. It should be a great ride!
Pics From the top: 1. Jen in the finishing chute of IM Florida in 2000; 2. on the right: Dave, Jen and Ron Weiss just before the Florida IM; 3. Just engaged!

Can you see that larger white speck just a hair left of center? That's me. Well, that's approximately where I was at the last IM I did, IMLP '05. That was also the last time I was in any kind of really good swimming form. In 2006 I crashed on the bike and it's taken me 2 years to get back to be able to swim masters with Rick again. For those of you who do not know of Rick Ferriola's swim rep: he is an excellent swim coach, the workouts are tough and demanding. I returned to masters swim last month and had been taking it slightly easier, feeling my way back in, conscious of my repaired left shoulder. I figured it would take me at least 4 weeks to build my yardage and speed. Yesterday when I walked out on the deck, I could tell that tri season is about to go full swing. The sessions was packed! I spied Bob Otto in my old lane from the IM days in '05 and I took a risk. I said "Bob, I'm swimming behind you today". So I jumped in lane 3 with the boys. "Warm up" was 3 x 300 on 5:15- I wasn't nervous about that, it was an easy pace. The next set was on the board but the interval wasn't there. It was 3 x 300 descend on 4:45. YIKES! What did I get myself into? I didn't think, just swam. I swam fine! I wasn't tired, my shoulder held up and I even had to back off from touching the toes in front of me. Next up: 1 x 600 pull descending by 200's. This was a little tougher for me, pulling without the kick for me always is but I hung in there and even though Larry Costantino was leading and turns into a rocket with a pull boey attached, I managed to hang onto Mike in front of me and not get lapped. Bob was swearing the last 200 was like a 1:20 pace. Crazy! Rick had descending sets of 100's coming up and I was relieved because it is much easier to stay on pace with shorter intervals. The first set was on 1:45, faster on 1:35 and for each set of 4, the interval dropped by 10 sec. 7 am rolled around and it was time for my one hour workout to end to get to work. When I got out of the pool, Rick happily congratulated me on swimming so well. I think his words were "Good job! You were really able to hang in there! Now you can go home and tell Dave you swam in his lane today, he'll be proud". I was psyched! Compliments don't come to often so I feel like I really earned that one. I was pushing on some of the efforts because I could feel that lung burn, but the shoulder and my muscles were fine. If you know how fast my husband swims (a sub 1 hour on the LP IM course) and he leads that lane, then you know the intervals were fast and I was psyched to make them feeling good. I'm back!

Critical thinking

M.E. sent this link to me today. It's incredibly moving and I want to share it with you all. Seeing something like this makes you really appreciate all you do have and how much you have to look forward to each day. It's so easy to get stuck in a routine rut and take certain people in your life for granted. For me, I am going to make sure my husband, family and good friends know how much I appreciate them and all they do for me in love and support. I can only speak for myself as an athlete and I fully admit to being selfish about fitting in work out time. If you want to excel at something, you need to make certain sacrifices to be able to work as hard as you need to to get where you want to be. The training is always a fun journey, it's my favorite part, but it shouldn't come before the people that care most about you. I am fortunate to have a husband that shares my interests and supports my athletic life as well as my mother and sister lending a hand so that I can fit in the longer training but sometimes you have to give in a little. I did that this weekend. I missed a long run to hang out with my family on my brothers birthday. We had a great time and of course the mental obsessive athlete in me spent alot of time thinking about how I was going to rearrange my limited time during the week to still get the long run benefit. After watching this clip, I totally made the proper decision. If I was left with one day, what would I do with it? I wouldn't go for a run, I would hang out with my family.

http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3372420&categoryId=3060647