32 and living my dream.

Sometimes (ok alot of the time) I think that I am absolutely crazy. I am 32, have left my work, spend countless hours training on the bike, in the pool, in freezing cold winds running, in the weight room and I think mostly of the next training session, sleep and food. I sometimes shake my head and wonder who this person is. But then as I put my hands above my head and stretch and feel every aching muscle in my body, I smile. I smile because I have a phenomenal team around me that is on this crazy journey with me. I have a coach that I can't say enough about. I get to have the best head rush or euphoric sensation most days when I train, massages that are as relaxing as are painful, ART that is not relaxing but somehow makes me keep moving when I am "stuck". I get to eat and eat and eat.... I guess what I am saying is that everyday I am thankful to be where I am. There are few people who do what I am doing and follow their dreams...no matter how far they seem to be at any given time. How lucky am I to be able to say I am 32 and absolutely loving life for all that it gives me. Here is to being older!

Full-time Athlete!

The day has finally come. I am a full time triathlete. Amazing. My first 4 days have been me trying to get used to not having to call into work, letting them know I will be late again, firing off emails frantically, trying to keep up… running. Always running.

To be honest I feel tired. It is like when you finally get on the plane for a holiday… you give a big sigh and have an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. You made it, just. Perhaps it is because for the first time in years I am starting to breath, stretch, relax between workouts. I am even sitting down when I eat! I get excited about nap time and am on a mission to excel at chilling – letting my body recover. I expected to have more time but really this is not the way it works. I am not cramming workouts in and find myself focussing better on what my work is for that day. I am doing strength work, I stretch, ice when I need to and am trying to have better nutrition. I have yet to find a rhythm to all this but it will come.

But before I get too far I notice that it has been awhile since my last post! Essentially the past few months have been very up and down... I had a lot of fun transitioning into fall training- went to lots of great music concerts (Dan Mangan, Amy Millan, Hannah Georgas among others), a hockey game (Sens actually won!) and was running lots. I was living with Beth, a friend from my undergrad days, and life was good. I then got injured and with this everything seemed to fall apart at the seams. Injuries are hard for two reasons. The first is obviously because you can't do what you love to do. The second is that they take a lot of time to figure out what is actually wrong. Once again my incredible support team pulled through and after a month of doing stuff (A.R.T, X-Rays, Bone Scans etc) I learnt that I caught a stress fracture in the femur below the lesser trochanter before it actually happened. Stress fractures, while always not good, are really really not good if they are in the femur because they are so hard to heal. Anyway - I stopped running for a little bit.

The next injury happened early December and involved the intercostal muscle. These little muscles are the ones that help you breathe so you can imagine how annoying (and painful!) this one is. It was a bit of a freak injury that put me once again into a holding pattern. Once I finally was running again I had yet another freak thing happen… I twisted my knee while dancing with my 4 ½ year old niece. Frustrating is one way to put it. Once again, Rebecca and Michael went to work on me and I am now running. My knee is still a bit stiff but I am praying that it will eventually just let go. By the time I build up to longer runs I hope that I will be able to add some intensity back in. The positive aspect of all this is that my swim and bike have never been stronger! Seeing times go down in the pool and power go up on the bike is very gratifying.

The interesting thing about injury is the reflection on why it happens - over-training, bad nutrition, lack of stretching, poor recovery - little of everything! For me I think where I have the most to improve on is the nutrition part (ok the recovery too). I have recently learnt that on a pretty normal training day I need to take in between 4000-5000 calories! Do you know how much that is? An average person needs approximately 1500 calories. I eat that before lunch. I have actually been gaining weight in the process of eating more which is mentally a little challenging. Most people would love the challenge of having to eat more but let me tell you - it is not as easy as you think especially because I am still pretty picky on what I tend to consume. Copious amounts of fruits and veggies are just not going to cut it anymore sadly. Bring on the protein, bread and maybe a little extra chocolate!

So where am I now. I moved again and living at another friends. Back in the Glebe! Very very happy to be here and am happy that I will not be moving for a little while now. Three times in 5 months was a little much. Perhaps now with my new found full-time athlete status I will keep up more with blogging. Would be good as there is much more to say… but that is enough for today.