Category: Community & Lifestyle

When Ironman Becomes The New Normal

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After a few years of racing Ironman, John and I have got a solid rhythm. We have a routine that works for pre-, during- and post-race. I’m not saying that Ironman has gotten boring–because for me it definitely hasn’t–but I will say that much of the mystery and uncertainty has been revealed. The unexpected still happens, but in general, we know how the system works. Nutrition, gear, spectating – we got our routines and they work. So what do you do to shake things up? Well, if you are my crazy husband, you sign up for a 100 mile ultrarun. …

Suffer Today, Win Tomorrow: 20 Weeks to Ironman Lake Placid

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Twenty weeks, five months, less than half of a year. That’s how much training time I have from now until my third go round with Ironman Lake Placid. (Previous IMLP race reports here: 2010, 2011.) With some experience, my understanding of what “5 months of training” means has changed considerably. For my first Ironman, 20 weeks to go was filled with questions such as: Will I finish? Will I hear Mike Reilly call my name as I cross the finish line? How difficult will it be to pee during the race? What goes on in the changing tent? Is it …

A race for you, a race for me: The two-athlete household

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“What are you doing today?” John asks me each morning. Now, in the average household, when one partner asks the other what she is doing, this typically results in a response about the totality of the day’s scheduled events. In the two-athlete household, this question only means one thing: What’s your workout? There are other idiosyncrasies to the two-athlete household. The laundry. Oh. Em. Gee. The laundry. Even though there are only two of us, we manage to produce a Brady Bunch sized volume of laundry.  This is complicated by the fact that there is a forcefield surrounding the laundry that makes …

Running Music: The beat of my own lyrics

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My running music playlist is an embarrassment to “real” music. It’s full of candy pop, hip hop, booty bop, and electronic rock. I don’t always run with music, but when I do, my primary goal for a running song is the beat. I need the boom-boom-boom-boom to work with the cadence of my footfalls, so this frequently leads me to “that” section of iTunes in search of the boom-ba-doom-ba-boom-ba-doom-boom bass. I’m particularly partial to any song that has the word “remix” in the title. While I select songs based a fast beat, after listening to them over and over, the lyrics do …

The Anti-Skiing Ski Vacation

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“So, you really aren’t going to ski?” John asked. We were packing for our weekend trip to his grandparents’ vacation home Vermont. “Nope. My body is a temple,” I replied. “I’ve got to respect the temple.” Ever since I started training for Ironman, I have come to see my body in a very different way, as something to build, to strengthen, to protect, and to respect. Sounds like some kind of temple to me. At almost 40 years old, I am the fittest I have ever been in my life. I have worked very hard to build my temple, and …

Why cheating matters – and why it’s not about Armstrong

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Lance-come-lately’s admission of doping has many talking, while others wish the tabloid gossip would go away, wondering why in the heck we should care about someone who lied and cheated in a sport that affects so few of us. I’ve hesitated about posting my thoughts; I’m not a fan of controversy on my blog. But you’ll be happy to know that this post is NOT about my take on the Lance-Armstrong-gate. This post is about why cheating matters to me, why I’m upset about cheating, and why I believe cheating is a bigger issue than some may care to admit. …

I put my hat on

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I put my hat on, and head to the end of my driveway. I look left, right. I make the turn onto my street. The movement is de-li-cious after a long ride, hunched over aerobars. Now, I move the way I was made to move. I tug on the hat to make sure it is snug and low. I see the stretch of road ahead of me. There is magic in this moment, in the pitter pat of my feet. Magic. Pitter pat. Just like this. Pitter pat. My muscles and tendons stretch, and give a yawn. They open to the …

Who are you calling old?

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Last week, on December 11th, I turned 40-44 years old. Okay, really, I turned 39 years old, but in terms of my age group for the 2013 triathlon season, I’ll be racing in the 40-44 year old division. That’s because USA Triathlon calculates your age group based on your age by December 31st of the racing year. By December 31, 2013, I’ll be 40. Thanks to USAT, I can cue the confetti and streamers now to mark my evolution into a new decade. Some (who shall remain nameless to protect them from having birthday cake thrown at them) have implied that perhaps …

Thanks for asking

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Many times, I’ve been asked different variations on the same question: “Why?” Why do you run? And, why do you run sooooo far? What makes you want to do an Ironman? Repeatedly? Are you going to keep doing Ironmans all the time now? So, is all this stuff the new normal? Why would you put your body through all of that?  Because I’m not sure the person truly wants to hear the real answer, I usually offer up something quick like “It’s fun,” or “Because I can.” Then, I offer a nervous smile, because I feel fairly certain that the …

Anything Is Possible

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Standing on Ali’i Drive, after watching the swim start of the Ironman World Championships, I saw their purple shirts, a shade of purple I recognized immediately as belonging to pancreatic cancer awareness. The front of the t-shirts read, “Molli is doing the Ironman with Pancreatic Cancer.” That must be a typo, right? They must mean ‘for’ pancreatic cancer. There’s no way she could be doing it with pancreatic cancer. Having witnessed the pain and torment my mother went through in the past year, I couldn’t imagine anyone surviving that horrible disease, let alone completing an Ironman with it. I didn’t …