Tacking

I'm working with a strong wind to starboard, tacking to gain ground. Even when I sit still the movement is too much for me. I need more: time, rest, space. The stolen hours are never enough. I miss Australia, the sunburnt country, and I want time to stop. The future is imminent: the work I've worked to have, the home I've waited to find, all of it so big and real that I want to throw up a billowing spinnaker against the brilliance of the light.

Triathlons are over for this summer. It will be rowing now, back in skinny boats with long oars and that spectacular sensation of flight when the keel stands balanced and runs out beneath you while your wake runs on in rivers. Let it run, they say. Soft hands. Breathe. It is meditation. It is God come down.

winding down

Today is my last day at the current firm. No triathlons are scheduled for the immediate future because we're flying off tomorrow for several weeks in Japan and Australia, visiting old friends. I may do a few late-season races when we get back, but the training is on the back burner at the moment.

In very good news, I got an MRI and MRA to see if there's any abnormality in my brain that's causing the bad headaches I get when I swim hard. You guessed it: they examined my head and found nothing. There's a history of stroke and brain aneurysm in my family, so I bolt to the nearest neurologist when I get a pain in my head. Luckily this time it's just a headache, nothing more. The MRI machine is the closest to a medieval torture device I ever hope to get. They stuck me up to my waist in it for 25 minutes and I imagined I was surfing - it made sense with all the vibration and noise. I rode the waves at Torquay and JanJuc the whole time, bobbing in that infinite, dark southern ocean, so far away nothing could touch me. It would have been too scary otherwise.

a few more workouts

Nice swim workout the other night, a good bike ride this morning with Andy and Bu as part of RAGBRAI, the (Des Moines) Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. We did maybe 25 miles on the old, unsexy hybrids with Bu on his tagalong behind my bike. He wore his US Postal jersey and had a fabulous time. Toward the end he got tired and it started to rain, but he's only three. He can go the distance in years to come.

And in other news, I won a full dismissal on the very first real-life motion for summary judgment I ever wrote.

vertical

Yesterday Andy and I went rock climbing outdoors for the first time.  We'd tried climbing walls before, but this was the first actual rock.  We went to Pictured Rocks park where you can climb limestone cliffs along the Maquoketa River.  A couple of local gurus (I keep discovering them) took us out.  One of them has come within 1500m of the summit of Everest, so I think he qualifies as a knowledgeable climber.  He also has the body fat of a gnat and scrambled up the cliffs like he was time trialing.  Andy and I did okay.  We made it to the top, or nearly, of several climbs, but today I don't think either of us could carry groceries to the car.  It was a blast.  By the end I felt like I was really getting it and trying things I wouldn't have dared before. 

In winter, they say, we can climb frozen waterfalls.  It ain't skiing, but maybe I could get into this!

fast wheels

Yesterday, while over in France they were time trialing, I went out for a nice hard 40 miler with the local cycling guru Nor.  He rode a frame he got on Ebay that was actually ridden in the Tour back in the 70s, from a now-defunct Austrian manufacturer named Puch.  I was on Ananda as usual, my Terry Symmetry, which is a great training bike but has begun to hold me back in races.  It's a little heavy for my purposes, and the components are Shimano Tiagra - bottom-of-the-line and very poorly reviewed.  They're already giving me trouble, and I clean and tune my bike (like the aforementioned unhappy reviewer) after every use.  I also put in way more weekly miles, and harder, than the average recreational rider. 

I can keep up with Nor, but it's more work than it should be.  He's talking about building up a carbon fiber racing bike for me from the infinite selection of parts in his basement, and I'm doing everything I can to encourage the idea.  I'm also stalking Ebay for a real tri bike in my size.  With the right bike, I think I really could be leading the bike leg every race.  A few sites I've read suggest the Cervelo P2k as the quintessential tri bike, and now that there are some newer models out maybe some will come available.  Luckily I'm utterly average as a triathlete in height and weight.  Fingers crossed that I stumble across one I can afford. 

Let 'er buck

That's what I say in the bike leg in a race, when I'm pulling up on someone or someone's trying to overtake me.  I lean over my bike like the cowboy in Hidalgo and say, "Okay little sister, let 'er buck," and we take off.  It's also evocative of my high school tennis coach, who had lots of inspirational and bizarre sayings, including 'let 'er buck', 'hey little girl, want some candy?', 'have some fun hitting some tennis balls', 'when E.F. Lyon talks, you better listen', and my personal favorite, "I want to hear you say, you painted a Rembrandt sir."

This morning was a run, a great run, fueled by extra adrenalin whenever the blackbirds and jays buzzed me, through an ethereal ground-effect fog on corn-lined gravel roads in a sweat-bathed dawn.  Had to stop for trains going out and coming back, but I was fast and light and my feet hardly touched the dirt.  The sun broke over the soybeans as I headed back into town, immense in the thick atmosphere, like the sun had cracked and was running yoke-like down through the fields toward the sleeping village.  I ran ahead of it, buoyed up by the haze.

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

The father is safely in residence at the Iowa Veterans Home, which is by all appearances and reports the nicest place.  What a stroke of good luck that was, that it should be not only massively subsidized by the government but also a place you'd want to be.  I'm afraid we went out to dinner last night to celebrate, which felt odd, considering that in some lights I did just institutionalize a member of my immediate family.  But it's such a relief, and he seemed happy.  I believe they'll take good care of him. 

This morning I finally got to do yoga again, the beefcake dvd naturally, because if you're getting up at 5:30 a.m. to sweat the least you deserve is a little eye candy.  I feel so much better.  I'd forgotten how much it relaxes me.  There may be a few more late-season triathlons, but I'm going to give myself a bit of a break to do whatever I want.  There's also a long vacation to Japan and Australia in the works, so I can get a proper Japanese bath, eat amazing Japanese food three times a day (!), and then go back down under to the unique delights of Melbourne in winter and my absolutely lovely Aussie friends.  I love Australia.  How nice that it exists.

Bu is having issues with his child care provision.  We took him out of preschool for July so that he could just play, go to the pool, ride his bike, roller blade, all that, and we hired a friend's 18-year-old daughter to watch him along with her 9-year-old sister, whom he loves.  It seemed like the perfect arrangement, especially as he was showing a distinct lack of keenness for preschool.  I think what we really accomplished is to teach him that his daily activities are infinitely mutable, and if we wanted we could probably arrange for him to play with his best friend Martin every day.  Now he's holding out for that, creating a huge drama every day when I leave him.  It's absurd - he plays and has a marvelous time all day long according to everyone who interacts with him (and that's lots of people), but he still tries to drive Mama and Papa into frenzies of guilt at drop-off time.  Children.  Can't live with 'em, can't rely on wolves to teach them phonics.

alterna-tri

This morning I raced in the Iowa Games triathlon outside Ogden, Iowa.  I won't be getting splits on the legs or the transitions because they didn't use timing chips, and I don't think my official race time is right (it was over a minute more than what my watch showed at the finish).  But it was still a personal best.  The time I registered was 1:18:30 (theirs was 1:19:39), ten minutes faster than my previous best for a sprint tri.  The bike leg on this one was a mile shorter, but it was still a much faster race.  The swim went great, I was very competitive on the bike leg, and on the run I felt a lot better than I have lately while running.  Maybe eventually I'll find out my rank, maybe I won't, I'm not too worried.  We took off right afterward to get showers at the hotel and go see Dad at the VA.  It was a great race.
 
And what a funny race it was.  Not a USA Triathlon event, so everything was just a little ... different.  No security around the transition areas, no numbers on the bikes, no PA system, no race bag goodies, no particular anxiety about following the rules, just your basic no-frills swim, bike, run.  The crowd with the tricked out tri bikes, swish wetsuits, etc., was conspicuously absent.  A lot of first-timers, milk jugs for buoys on the swim.  It was all very Iowa and in fact very nice.

oh the humanity

Yesterday was the firm's annual canoe outing. It was all great until I clubbed a partner with my paddle while trying to defend my canoe. That's just gotta qualify as a Career Limiting Decision. I took him to lunch today to make amends. It was a great time, but I'm sore all over from all the tree-climbing, rock-jumping-off, rope-swinging, canoe flipping, beer-drinking fun. Bruised everywhere. I went for a run this morning to shake it off a little. Why can't I run like that in a race? It was effortless, just smooth and fast and gorgeous in the early morning calm.

running wet 

swimahoya!

Finally found the results for the Cornman. They'd posted them at a link on the Pigman site (go figure), so I had to google to find them. My time was 1:28:22 for 121st overall out of 221 competitors, 19 out of 48 women and exactly midpack in my age group. This is a few minutes faster than my Pigman time, plus my overall swim ranking was higher than I ranked for the bike and run! No way, you say? Way! My splits were slower than last time, but I think the course was a little longer because the buoys had blown over to one side. It was hard to go point-to-point along the buoy line. Among the women my bike leg was still my fastest, as usual, but I'm delighted to see the swim coming along. It took long enough. My transitions were fast and I was very consistent from event to event. If I can get just a little bit faster at each one it will make a big difference all around. The humidity is really killing me on the run. My times are way slower than they were down in the dry of Australia. I also need to stop taking water from the volunteers just because I think they're lovely people. It slows me down and gives me a sideache.

Oh and I beat that partner from my firm again. I don't think he's too happy. I wasn't even really racing, just doing it for a workout, not killing myself for time. Don't hate me because I'm (kinda) fast.

the deluge

Cornman Triathlon was yesterday at Union Grove State Park near Marshalltown, Iowa. Next year, I propose, they ought to call it Rainman. Definitely. I still don't have my time or place because shortly after the race finished the rains came down, the main tent nearly blew away, and we all had to run for the nearest cinder block building for protection from the oncoming tornado. Andy got so soaked that we had to go to K-Mart afterward and buy him a $9 shirt so he wouldn't catch pneumonia before we got home.

Anyway, a good race. The swim and cycling went really well, but my running is disappointing lately. I don't seem to be going at the pace I normally do, and when I get done my ribs hurt again. When I finally get the actual splits I'll post them. It's a fairly tasteful t-shirt, black with the logo in white, and we acquired a nice lawn chair that someone abandoned in the storm. Bu played Spiderman Fights Octopus Man and played a lot on the beach. When we got home everyone was so exhausted that we slept until dinner.

getting my exercise

Yeah. I am getting my exercise my dropping middle aged lawyers like a bad habit on the bar association cycling outing. Their bikes cost twice as much as mine. I take that back - they cost twice as much as my car. They have wheels I would kill for. But I'm faster. By the time I think to look around, they're gone behind me over the last rise and I have nothing but open roads and green fields ahead.

Cornman Triathlon is tomorrow. My father's extended tenure in this house has me so depressed I seem to sleep whenever I'm not absolutely required to be awake, working, doing my thing. The workouts are the only time I'm awake and fully present. Some guy on the bar outing was doing the Cornman too. "Cornwoman, I guess we should say. Pigwoman." He laughed. "I prefer beating men at the Cornman, Pigman," I said. "More glory to it."

witch doctors and grim reapers

I woke up this morning half convinced my father was dead, so to snap out of it I went for a nice hard run up and down, up and down the only hill in town. It was this dream I had around four a.m. where a really scary witch doctor came to my house and threatened me with a long stick covered in dirty grave rags. I was scared, but not scared quite the way you would be if the grim reaper had come for you. The witch doctor wasn't there for me, it (male, female, I can't be sure) was there for my father in the next room. It was more like being a spectator at a grim reaping, startling and alarming at first but gradually less so.

The vets home where dad is going says it hasn't even gotten his application from the county, where we filed it over 10 days ago. I'm about ready to check into the Holiday Inn. At the risk of revealing myself as a bad daughter and a horrible person all round, I want to tell the VA people that I don't actually get along with my father, that I'm doing this because there's no one else to do it and I've already earned enough good karma, thank you, they can take him away now (or yesterday). Good God when will this be over?

swim meet

Not mine, unfortunately. I went down to the local pool for my swim last night and there were cars everywhere. Odd, since the pool was supposed to be shut except for lap swim, which an average of 3 people attend. The pool deck was packed with people. I walked in to check it out, and the local swim club was having races. Kind of nice. Kids of all sizes flailing up and down, lots of cheering, loud music, a regular aquatic rodeo scene. Needless to say, lap swim was not taking place.

All suited up with no place to go, I rode my bike home and made dinner. I got a run this morning and felt good, no pain in my ribs, although I think I've lost some fitness in my legs. My knees always ache when I run after a break, before they harden up. There will have to be some long workouts over the long weekend to get ready for the Cornman Triathlon next weekend.

I went to the mountain

This last week I had the workout of the season. In six days I flew to Montana, cleared out my father's entire house, held a garage sale, got all his tangled affairs in something like order, and drove back out to Iowa with him. I slept on the floor. I dealt with constant and mind-boggling family craziness. I prevailed.

It's now Wednesday and we've been back two days, but when I woke up this morning the desire for another workout had not in any way revived. I'll hit the pool tonight and maybe go for a run afterward, if the ribs don't give me any trouble. My whole body is tired and my soul is fatigued.

back to the pool

There's a half hour lap swim at our little local outdoor pool. Seriously, half an hour a day. Obviously no one is training for much of anything. At the end of the half hour they turn up the music and next thing you know small children with water wings are falling from the sky. It's an invitation not to take the workout too seriously, just show up and jump in every day and do your thing as long as they'll let you. A good methodology for lots of things really. I will try to apply it to putting my father in a nursing home, which is the order of the hour. There comes a point for everyone where they turn the music up, you get out and little kids take over. It would bother me less if my father had some uncontrollable, tragic illness rather committing ritual suicide-by-diabetes at the young age of 67.

oh the pain

I tried to run this morning and nothing happened. Well, I jogged painfully for about half a block, turned around, went back to the house, got on my cycling clothes and went riding instead. It's going to put a serious crimp in triathlon training if I can't run.

This afternoon I saw the doctor about the headaches after swimming and the injured ribs. She says to try taking ibuprofen before I swim, because if it's some sort of exertion headache the anti-inflammatory might prevent it. She also got me an appointment with a neurologist (he's booked until August anyway) so that if ibuprofen doesn't help they can give me an MRI, an angiogram, and the general full-on poke-and-prod. Because of my family history of stroke and brain aneurysm she was fairly concerned, but just not the panicky type. I like a doctor who has you try ibuprofen before giving you an MRI. This seems very sane.

About the ribs, nothing can be done but take, yes, more ibuprofen. I really like mountain biking, but I like even better being able to breathe deeply and go for long runs, neither of which I can do now. Grumble grumble grumble. Silver lining: what with headaches and ribs, my cycling is getting better all the time.

mommy!

For my sins, my mother has come to town. Oh, I don't mean it like that. She's really perfectly harmless compared to my father, who has obviously been possessed by the sort of slothful alien who can be trusted never to take over the universe and go landing his spaceship on an aircraft carrier only to leap out in full Top Gun gear to shout in his unearthly tongue, "Mission accomplished!" Oh no, my mother is a more subtle menace. She'll let me get my workouts in, but I will feel guilty about it. I will. I feel guilty already just writing this post. You see how insidious it is?

Bloody marvelous thunderstorms this morning scrubbed the long run planned. Swimming this afternoon unless we see recurrence of aforementioned bloody marvelous thunderstorms.

the sky is full of blue

and full of the mind of God.