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Last week, I stalked social media for sneak peeks into the action from friends.
I fell asleep eager for those racing the next morning.
I dreamt (I kid you not) about it.
I woke up and immediately checked in on the action.
I constantly scanned for news and heard about the record-breaking performances.

Whether it was friends kicking-ass with sub-10 finish times, or Mirinda Carfrae demolishing the race with a new course record and the third-fastest overall run (2:50!), or seeing social media buddies posting about spectating the race, I couldn’t take all of this Kona excitement.

I can honestly say that I don’t think I’ve ever followed a sporting event that ignited my passion quite like this past weekend. The sport that I’ve grown, and am still growing, to love is complete with some of the world’s most dedicated and passionate athletes performing amazing feats of human willpower and physical aptitude.

I have to be honest, I did go and scope out how much time I would have to drop if I ever wanted to get to Kona. But by the time I’d be able to do another one, I’d be aging out of the 25-29 age group and into a much tougher age group. But what if? What if?

With my mom in town this past weekend and her by my side and on a bike, we trekked to my new favorite paved trail for my long run. The weather was perfection, the fall colors were so pristine that it almost seemed fake, and  19 miles flew by. I loved being with my mom and finally getting back to the long distances where you can experience more than a handful of emotions and thoughts, and longed for the long training days and recovery nights.

Someday, one day, I’d like to be back on the path to Ironman. We’ll see what it takes to get there, but for now, I loved every second of watching amazing people accomplish the unbelievable this weekend.

Happy Running.

As you may be able to tell, the frequency of my blog post have decreased, but I thank you for hanging in there with me as I get adjusted to this new little situation of mine. Patience, dear friends, patience.

Photo courtesy of Alyssa. I’m the giant on the left.

I’m working to find my way in my new city with new friends, maintain and sustain my life back home in California, go out and experience this new adventure as much as possible, all while getting settled at a new job and training for a marathon.  Long story short, it ain’t easy and my legs are taking their damn time.

I had, and still do have, quite ambitious goals for my half and full marathons this year, but I may be realizing that it might just take a little more time than originally anticipated. I’m still coming for you, CIM, but I’m already on a hunt for a spring marathon that may be better fit for goal domination. It’s frustrating, but at the same time, I’m ok with it. If there’s anything that I’ve learned over the past year and a half is that patience truly is a virtue. I know if twill all pay off in the end.

Now to forgive my laziness, the past almost 20 days have been full of running and traveling fiascos (including a last-minute trip back to California to see Chicken Face and friends), and I’ll forgo the weekly recap, but rest assured that there’s plenty of mileage happening and I ran my farthest since IMCDA last weekend: 15 miles. Like I said, slowly but surely.

Me, Cate, Alyssa and Caitlin. What up.

Right before the California downpour.

 Liquid courage at the Shark’s Game.

 Followed by exactly what I needed…R&R at the pool on the first day of fall.

Let’s talk about patience…when did you have to exercise extreme patience in training?

Happy Running!

This is not a tale of a romantic weekend, or how a lovely prince swept the princess off her feet. Instead it’s a tale of how grown adults can experience feats of grandeur yet crumble with child-like tendencies spurred by the often joked about, yet very serious, “hanger.”

This past weekend, Chicken Face came to visit for the first time since I moved to Portland. (For those new to the blog, Chicken Face is my husband. I know, the nickname makes zero sense and there is no amazing story. We’ll just have to deal with it.) I wanted to make sure that the weekend gave him a hint of the amazingness that Portland is, especially its outdoor splendor.

I ideated a few hiking options, but reconsidered when I was informed that my initial choices might be plagued by too many people. Instead, a friend referred a hiking spot called Dog Mountain. With minimal investigation, we decided that Dog Mountain it was! (I would later learn that my friend described the hike as “tough”; which I apparently glossed over.) We were eager to explore, catch up and take in the scenery on your less than average hike.

After a morning walk, coffee and muffin, we trekked out to the trailhead entrance full of zeal and conversation topics. Fully aware that the start of the climb would be steep, I honed in on my poison oak scanning eyes, hoofed it up the trail, and we still found ourselves chatting and enjoying the moment. YES! THIS IS EXACTLY WHAT I HAD ENVISIONED!

While the trail isn’t too long (~3.5 miles to the top), you must remember, I’ve been training for an Ironman for the last two years. My hill training was frequent, but mostly with the power of two wheels underneath me. I can’t say that I have the glute strength of all of you amazing trail runners out there, because it didn’t take long until we realized that this trail was 3.5 miles, yet 2,800 feet of up-ness.

We huffed and puffed, yet enjoyed our climb to the top. Hurrah! It was a beautiful, fun, gorgeous day that I got to spend with my man. Perfection!

But soon my little fantasy was over as I learned that the climb up wasn’t the hard part. Nor was the way down. In fact, all of it paled in comparison to the rage that was growing in my belly and slowly taking over every part of my being.

My chai and muffin weren’t enough, we idiotically failed to pack any snacks, water wasn’t cutting it for me anymore and it wasn’t long before I became hangry. Chicken Face joked at first and said something along the lines of, “Man up. You can survive three weeks without food.” I don’t think he knew the wrath that my hanger could bring. If you don’t know what hangry is, please learn it now:

Hangry: When you are so hungry that your lack of food causes you to become angry, frustrated or both.

Sure some people joke that they love food and get upset when they are hungry, but I kid you not, this was a full-steam hangry attack that took a turn for the worse. Time seemed to pass slowly, any fun that we were having was quickly evaporated, we grunted about the never-ending steepness of the trail, and soon I would easily fight a tiger for a bite of anything. (I keep hearing that, “Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb” SouthPark song in my head.) And yes, I am well aware that this may be a more serious issue with myself and I need to be very conscious to always keep my caloric intake at a certain level, this IS why I kept Costco-sized tubs of nuts in my locker in high school.

All joking aside, it then got pretty serious as I became really dizzy and needed to balance myself on Chicken Face on the way down. Apparently my husband is a super trooper because he wasn’t phased by his hunger outside of the norm. As soon as we got in the car, my eyes closed and I got quite nauseous on our drive to find food, not able to talk or think about anything other than food. We stopped at the first place we found, where I chugged an orange juice and quickly devoured my sandwich.

So as you reach the end of this blog post, you may be questioning yourself and asking, “Did I just read an entire post about someone who got dangerously pissy and hungry?” You better bet you ass you did. BUT! STAY WITH ME! I have to have my final Jerry Springer closing/PSA: this applies to life, to running, to cycling, to training: FUEL DAMMIT.

I don’t quite understand those who refuse to fuel while training then wonder why they bonked, and this hiking experience was the friendly reminder that this doesn’t just apply to serious training. Tough love and a good reminder for myself: fueling is a biological necessity that increases with exertion. And if you’re still upset with the nature of this blog post, well it’s just that, a blog post, not a WSJ article. Roll with it.

So where was I?
Oh yes, tell me I’m not the only one who has ever had a complete hangry meltdown?

Happy Running!

I’m still alive!

I haven’t bowed out of blogging, but am rather just getting my next little adventure set-up. From moving to Portland, a weekend with Chicken Face, starting my new job, recovering from Ironman, another weekend with my Mom, finding a new place to live and trying to find new routes, new food and new friends, life has been…well…crazy. A quick recap in photos:

The big move.

Voodoo Donuts.

Forest Park amazingness.

Cannon Beach — who knew this was in Oregon?!

Beer, beer and more beer.

New beginnings.

Weekends with mom.

Hiking and waterfalls.

Family time.

It’s been crazy, but am working on my new “pattern” and should be back blogging in no time. I have a few more Ironman posts are up my sleeve, as well as a return to running for the fall and winter. I can’t wait to share what’s next and hope you’ll stick around for the ride.

Happy Running!

This past Saturday, we triple bricked. That’s bike-run-bike-run-bike-run for over eight hours. It was the longest workout of the entire season and I made it out alive. But this blog post isn’t about the win that was Saturday’s triple brick. It’s about the fail that was Sunday’s swim.

Saturday was intense and Sunday was 2.4 miles of open water swimming, the very same thing that I had done the weekend prior. I arrived at the swim around 7 a.m. wanting to do nothing but sleep. It’s quite possible that I could have fallen asleep standing up. But this is nothing new in Ironman training – you must prepare to be tired and push through it.

I got suited up and into the water to do my anxiety drills. All went as planned. The rest of the group got in the water and like that, we started two loops of the Shadow Cliff triangle to equal 2.4 miles.

I started swimming and when I went to sight, I noticed that the three other guys that I’m usually not too far behind were pretty far in front of me. I knew that they were going all out for the first four minutes and I had strategically chosen not to so I could stay calm and prevent an anxiety attack. But the further they swam, the further I fell behind.

I stroked and breathed the way I usually do, but my body just wasn’t moving. It wasn’t too long before I was swimming completely solo and had lost any sort of swimming gusto.

Was it my fatigue from yesterday’s workout? I’m sure that played a part of it. But I also know that I was in my head, but this time, it wasn’t the “high jacking a school bus full of penguins and causing an unnecessary panic attack” (as Coach Paul would say) sort of thoughts. It was life thoughts.

Outside of Ironman training, there has been some big life moves happening right now. It has completely consumed me and over the past couple of weeks, it has become my main goal and priority, knocking Ironman down a few places. The stress of it all had finally caught up to me and made sure that I was aware of it on this swim.

For 2.4 miles I thought about everything and anything BUT swimming, and it completely obliterated me. I came out of the water cursing myself, walked over to the showers and one of my friends looked and me, shook his head and just said, “What happened?”

I couldn’t answer, grabbed my stuff and just left. It was childish, but I didn’t quite know else to handle this.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been thinking about what happened and how I could have handled this differently. This isn’t a sympathy post, but rather an experience I wanted to share because how I handled this experience was all wrong.

It’s great to preoccupy ourselves with outside, tangent thoughts to get us through our workouts. In fact, it’s almost mandatory when riding 6+ hour days. But when you think about goals and dreams, the motto still rings true: dreams don’t work unless you do.

More than ever, I believe that if you want to get serious about your results, you need to get serious about your training. I am in peak Ironman training and I threw and extremely important workout out the window by letting other thoughts consume me.

As difficult as it is to sometimes compartmentalize your life, sometimes you need to, or it will eat you, and your athletic potential, alive. Running is my time to think about life, but as you get serious in the game, training needs to be intentional or you are doing yourself multiple levels of disservice. I should have tried to not lose focus on the purpose of that swim and I should attack each workout with intention. So with that, I learned a very key lesson…

Get focused. Get serious. And of course, happy running!