Marathons are long.   Many people wouldn’t dream of doing one  and a few of us can’t imagine not accepting the challenge.  I, of course, am one of the few.  For everyone’s reference, all marathons are 26.2 miles.  Running, walking,  or crawling…26.2 miles.

• “You have to forget your last marathon before you try another. Your mind can’t know what’s coming.”  Frank Shorter

My winter was focused on training for my 5th marathon and the event has now come and gone.  I finished in under 5 hours, I didn’t get injured and I enjoyed the entire process.  My first goal was to fall in love with running again and that was accomplished before my marathon even started.  The rest was just gravy.

• “If you want to win something, run 100 meters. If you want to experience something, run a marathon.”  Emil Zatopek, Czech runner; winner of four Olympic gold medals

After 16 years of being an endurance athlete, the mystique of the marathon no longer exists for me.  Sure, it is a great accomplishment and I certainly honor that.  But a marathon is mostly work, a little heart and soul, a bit of guts.  There is no way to fake a marathon.  You can fake a 5K, a 10K, maybe even a half marathon, but not the 26.2.  Every marathon destroys you in some small way.

• “The marathon is a charismatic event. It has everything. It has drama. It has competition. It has camaraderie. It has heroism. Every jogger can’t dream of being an Olympic champion, but he can dream of finishing a marathon.”  Fred Lebow, New York City Marathon co-founder

My first marathon was in 2000 in Houston.  It was a great way to start off the turn of the century.  I remember looking at my running partner at mile 10 and saying, “26.2 miles is really far.”  I was simply stating a fact and she simply agreed.   My fastest was in 2004 in New York City.  At mile 16 I knew I could break 4-1/2 hours if I just pushed a bit more.   What an amazing feeling to be able to think it and then be able to do it.  Not all marathons go that way. All of them are tough, just in different degrees.  Houston was tough because it was my first, it was the mystique, the fear, the pain like no other.  My first NYC was like my first marathon, I was still such a novice about the experience.  The difference was that it was a party for 26.2 miles, the crowd support is like no other.  The Mardi Gras marathon was the most humbling.  It was a few months after Katrina.   There were few crowds and the city was still very deserted and sad.  There were no people walking their dogs, no children in the entire city.   There were only abandoned buildings with spray paint on the doors, houses with holes in the roofs where people got out, there were boats in the street, refrigerators at the curb and the smell of mold and mildew in the air.  Living with that is endurance.  It was a privledge to run in New Orleans but I hardly remember the run.  My latest marathon was in Washington D.C. on the first weekend of the Cherry Blossom Festival.  The venue was beautiful, the day was glorious, and the course was moderately challenging.  I ran along the streets and enjoyed the scenery.  I kept my pace, I did the work and I finished.  The sense of accomplishment is wonderful!  I even have thoughts of doing another marathon.

• “If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon.”  Kathrine Switzer, women’s marathoning pioneer

My view of the marathon has been changed with this experience.  And as with any challenge, my view of myself has changed as well.  I finally realize that I am a marathoner.  Ok, ok, I’ve done five of them, you’d think I would have figured it out by now.  But with this one, I felt such a sense of self, of it being MY event that it was like no other.  I make no excuses for not being faster, I truly accept what IS.  I am content.  I am a runner, I am a marathoner.  I now know that to be true.

Over the past few years I have struggled with the run.  I used to like running, I think I even loved it at one time.  I remember my group in Dallas and all the great times we had running, talking, and being each other’s therapists.   As the years went on and I kept getting slower and slower, I started to dread it, and yes, I hated it.  Not that I was ever ‘fast’, I just never realized that I could run so slow and still be doing the action of running.  Did it even count as running?

Instead of running away from running (pun intended), I decided to immerse myself completely in it by signing up for the marathon.  Why am I this way?  Why can’t I just let it go and “not be a runner” anymore?  I guess there was something about running in the Fall with the leaves, the sky, and the cool air that inspired me.  The timing of the marathon was strategic.  It is in March which meant that I would be running through the holidays and through the winter.  I would absolutely have to get out of bed and get the workout in, no excuses.  That was the plan, it sounded great in October and I was excited to see what would happen.

I had a decent base–even a slow base–so my shortest long run was 10 miles sometime in October.  I was feeling good, I was so slow I couldn’t stand looking at my watch, but I was putting in the miles and “just do[ing] it”.  Then winter arrived.  The first week of November brought 30 degree temperatures, December was windy and cold with 20 degrees were the daily high temperatures, and January was the snowiest in New York history.  February has not been easy either.  Until the snow came, I was running on the road doing a nice route from Nyack to Northern New Jersey.  It took me along the Hudson River with views of things like beautiful historic homes and horse stables.  With the snow and the biting winter winds, I could no longer run on my roads.  My weekend runs were up to 16 and 18 miles and the thought of going one direction into a zero degree windchill for 8, 9, or 10 miles was out of the question plus, the snow banks were so high it was unsafe to being playing in traffic.  So off I went to Rockland Lake State Park.  It is a lovely little park less than 5 miles from my house.  There is a path around the lake that is maintained throughout the winter, there are two restroom facilities open year round, there are always people there and with a 3 mile loop, the farthest I would ever be from my car was 1-1/2 miles and even with wind, the loop was small enough that it would be at my back relatively soon.  It was a great alternative!  I love where I live, yay!

Just one thing, the actual running of 16 or 18 miles on a 3 mile loop was rough!  Not that the distance would ever be easy, the mental anguish of some of those loops will haunt me forever.   Every now and then someone I know would join me for a loop or two, then they went home to have coffee and breakfast and I kept running.  There are ‘regulars’ at the lake but no one speaks and very few people say hello.  There are times when it is lonely, sometimes it is meditative to go around in circles, sometimes I plan my day, my week, my year.  Sometimes I go blank, sometimes I laugh out loud, and sometimes I cry.

What was I doing?  Why did I set this goal for myself?  My bike was wrapped in cellophane (not really but I heard that once about the end of cycling season and liked it), my swim suit was in the closet and all I did was run, run, run.  I felt like Forest Gump.  I have never run so much in my life.  I had never done much more than a 25 mile week, now I was up to 38 miles, this was crazy.  I longed for my bike, I wanted to smell the chlorine of the pool, I missed my cycling class, I missed my pool buddies.  I was running by myself and struggling through it and dreading it.  I have never run with an ipod but now it was my best friend.   The monotony was tough.  All this work and I wasn’t any faster and I didn’t love running again.

Then something happened.  After a 16 miler one day, I looked at my watch and I was faster!  I mean I was two minutes per mile faster!  2 minutes faster for 16 whole miles! I didn’t feel like I was working harder, I was just working.  Remember when the Grinch’s heart “grew three sizes that day”?  It busted out of the frame and he grinned literally from ear to ear?  That was me!

Since then I’ve done more 16 mile runs, a couple of 18s, and today my 20.  The marathon is still several weeks away.  The weather is still cold, the winds are still blowing and more snow is in the forecast for this week.  The journey will continue and I will persevere.  I still wonder why I am like this, but at this point there is no reason to question my decision.

Marathons are not easy and this will be my fifth.  We set goals for a reason, to get our butts out of bed and face the task at hand.  I found a quote this morning from Henry Ford that helped me go to the lake and go ’round and ’round.

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”

Oh, that reminds me, I need new songs on my ipod.

I stand in awe of my legs and feet after 20 miles

I had an afternoon of running errands, including two medical appointments, today.  My first stop was for blood work.  I got there and a screaming little girl was working it.  Crocodile tears, promises of lollipops (with all the colors of the rainbow she insisted),  and the staff at the office holding her down finally did the trick.  Then it was my turn.  My phlebotomist crossed my name off the sign in sheet and yelled, “ANN!” at the top of his lungs.  I was the only one in the place.  Standing up, I said, “Hi, how are you”?  No answer from Alexander.  He went right to the computer screen and asked for my birthdate.  Click, click, click went the keys on the computer as I stood there with my coat in my arms.  After a while, I asked if I should sit and he pointed to the chair, click, click, click.  Insurance?  Yes, Aetna.  Click, click, click.  Alex quickly put on gloves, tied the rubber band around my arm, jabbed the needle in my vein, took two tubes of blood, took out the needle, ripped off the gloves and said, “ok” and left the room.

Next stop was the grocery store.  I said hello to the checker and she never looked up from scanning the items.  I handed her my discount card and she clicked her tongue at me.  Ok, I couldn’t get the card out of my wallet fast enough.  Sorry I ruined your day!  I bagged my own groceries as she was showing no interest in doing it for me.  I paid, she handed me the receipt and off I went.  If the checker had to describe me, I really don’t know if she would remember if I was male or female.

Some more stops and more of the same.  Am I invisible?  What is going on?

My last stop was for some radiography.  Like the blood drawing place, I signed in with no one to greet me except notices of “don’t do this”, “don’t do that”, “give us your insurance card”, “you will not be seen without your prescription”.  I sat in the crowded reception room and listened to everyone’s name as it was yelled as loud as possible.  Finally, it was “ANN!”  Up I went to follow my technician.  Again I said, “Hi, how are you?”  Her response was “what is your birthdate?”  “Go in here, get undressed.”  Now this appointment was in a Women’s Center and you can guess that the tests I was having performed were intimate.  The woman said absolutely nothing to me the entire time.  Probe in, click, click, click of the computer, click, click, click, remove probe, turn off computer.  She uttered “Ok” and left the room

These experiences didn’t completely ruin my day.  I am healthier than that.  But what it did do was make some uncomfortable tasks even more unpleasant.  I am a dental hygienist and if I EVER treated a patient in the same manner I was treated today, I would be unemployed quickly.  Yes, we all have bad days.  Yes, there are times when small talk seems so trivial that I want to pull my hair out.  Yes, talking about the weather is dull.  Listening to my patients’ account of  traffic is excruciating but I just listen, nod, and saw awww at appropriate times.

I learned early on in my career that some days called for my greatest acting skills.  I guess even playing small parts in school plays does find its way into your adult life!  The skill of “acting” like a dental professional really does work.  Many of my patients don’t know anything about my personal trials and tribulations.  It is my job to act like a dental hygienist, not a person going through something at home, or distracted by the weather, or upset about what the receptionist just told me about my vacation pay.

At the very least, can’t we be civil to one another?  After all, we are humans sharing the same planet.  We are neighbors, not enemies!  We live in the same country, even the same county.  The last time I checked we were not at war with each other.  Is it really that difficult for people to say hello to one another?  Maybe if we took the effort to be nice to each other that next snow storm wouldn’t seem so bad and we would have hope that the economy will get better.  Sometimes getting outside your own head makes the world we live in a much better place.

Autumn has always been my favorite time of year and a day like today reminds me why I like it so much.  For many people, the Fall season signals “the end” of another summer, the end of another year.  Yes, I feel that as well, but for me the end of something always means the beginning of something else.

Because summer is over, my triathlon season has ended.  I gave myself a little time to savor my accomplishments before setting some new goals for next year.  In 2010, I became an Athena.  But you know, it really wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it would be.  I actually stopped thinking about my weight and my size and simply allowed myself to ‘be’.  Freedom at last!  I guess it was the process (years and years of it) leading up to acceptance and acknowledgment.  It has finally kicked in!  Self-acceptance and confidence… that is the victory.   I had no PR’s in my events this year, but it really doesn’t seem to matter.  The biggest change was in my cycling which I took to a new level through regular rides, no braking on the downhills, and just doing the best I could on the uphills.  This was a shift, I didn’t tell myself that I ‘sucked on the uphills’, I simply went up the hill.  Now, I love cycling more than ever.

So what will I do next year?  I think I’m ready for a change in focus.  For 2011, I have two big goals:  the National Marathon on 3-26-11 in Washington D.C. and the 6 mile Kingdom Swim on 7-9-11 in Vermont.    The marathon will be my 5th (not including the 2 Ironman marathons, they don’t count as stand alone marathons) and the swim is like nothing I’ve attempted before.  I recently completed a 10k swim in the Hudson, but it was “tide assisted” so it wasn’t as though I swam the entire distance under my own power.  Part of it was like body surfing on the current!  I know a local guy who has swum 3 consecutive loops of Manhattan Island (28 miles each loop) and he has agreed to help me with my training plan.  When I told him what I was doing, he simply said, “you are going to earn every yard of those 6 miles”.  He was not trying to be negative or frighten me, just simply stating a fact.  Basically, I won’t be surfing on the current!  The funny thing is, this statement didn’t scare me, it made me more determined to accomplish it.  As for the marathon, a good friend of mine is a former professional runner and she is working on a training plan for me.  I have never trained strictly for a marathon as I was always cycling and swimming also to train for triathlons.

It is strange to think of hanging up my bike until April especially after realizing my new love for the bike.  My marathon training plan does not allow for cycling, I need to rest my legs at some point to be able to run 26.2 miles in March.  We are going to use swimming as my cross-training with yoga once or twice a week for strength and recovery.  Over the past 3 years I have spent every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday cycling or attending a cycling class.  But tonight, I’m home writing this, not spinning with my buddies.  I didn’t think it would be so noticeable!  Some days I dreaded going out of the apartment after work so much that I would hope that class would be canceled.  I dragged myself to a bike ride or a class yawning, trying to come up with an excuse to leave early, or hoping there was a power outage and class couldn’t happen.  Once there, it was tough, but it was always good.  Good workout, good jokes, good conversations, all leading to good friends.

Now I will spend my workout time primarily running and swimming.  This morning, I swam from 5:30-6:30, came home and walked Margot, then went out for a 4 mile run before work.  This will be a new normal for the winter.  It will get me out of bed on those dark days ahead.

As with anything we face in life, this new challenge will bring new revelations and lessons.  I’m looking forward to the process and reflecting on it this time next year.   I know that I am fortunate that this is what I get to do with my time and I plan to make the most of it!

On September 11, 2001, I had no television.  I had sworn off t.v. as a personal challenge to myself to read and stop wasting time on mindless drivel.  On that day, I missed having t.v.  Not that I wanted to view the planes crashing into buildings over and over but I just felt a need to know what was going on, I wanted to feel a connection to the event.   It was strange, very few patients canceled their appointments and we went through a somewhat normal day.  My husband was still living at our house with my dog, so I rushed over there after work to watch the coverage and take care of Jonesie.  I called my best friend, K, and we just stayed on the phone together for hours watching the news together.

I look back in charts of people I saw that day in 2001 and we talk about the fact that we were going on with life because we didn’t really know what was going on.  The strangest part of that week was that we all showed up for work, not one patient canceled and we cleaned teeth.  No one said anything, all we could hear was the sound of the suction for eight hours, three days of it that week.  My guy was able to get out of Manhattan by Friday.  I drove to meet him at the train and realized I hadn’t put on my seat belt.  We went to a Chinese restaurant for dinner, there were a lot of families gathering together and we actually laughed for the first time in several days.  It was shocking to hear laughter.

At the time, I knew no one who lost their life that day or even anyone who knew anyone who lost someone.  As time went on, I discovered one of my patients lost her brother, a patient I had seen during a temp assignment (he recommended a groomer for Jonesie) had been killed and later, I met a woman who lost her husband.

I should say here that I am a cynic.  I get tired of sentimentality after about four hours of  excess media coverage.  The only exception was 9/11/01 and Katrina, but even then, it was 48 hours and I had ‘got it’ and wanted to move on.   That is why I was so surprised when I felt sentimental on September 11, 2010.  I have never taken a September 11th off from work, let’s move on, don’t let the terrorist win ( a phrase I really don’t like), and most importantly,  it is not a holiday.  This year,  it looked like I was going to have the day off, a last minute temp assignment came in and I ended up working.

So, why do I feel sentimental this year?  Maybe it is the controversy over the mosque being built at Ground Zero, maybe it is an American preacher planning to burn the Quran on September 11th.  Maybe it is the fact that we as a country haven’t moved on.   The demons remain…politically, economically, socially, everywhere.

When will the moving on occur?  Will it happen after the new towers are completed?  Will it happen when all the trees are planted on the memorial plaza?  Will it happen when there is a holiday for September 11th?  Many calendars already designate  the date as Patriot Day.  I’m not convinced.  Patriot’s Day is a Monday in April in Boston, it is the day of the Boston Marathon and recognition of the first battles of the American Revolution (Lexington and Concord).

Before I continue, I must air my pet peeves about the sentimentality surrounding September 11th…all sentimental people, please skip this paragraph.  If you know me, you will not be surprised, if you don’t know me, well, you don’t know me.

September 11th was not a Revolution for Americans, it was a statement of terrorists.  The people in the Towers were NOT “fighting for our freedom”, they were going to work.  The firefighters were doing what firefighters do, no different from any other day.  Firefighters face danger all the time.  Yes, this was horrific, but for them, it was another disaster to face.  They didn’t know what it was.  They are all ‘heroes’, but they are heroes because they are there in the first place, then and now, September 11th, no September 11th.

As my temporary work day progressed this year, there was one (out of 10) patient who recognized that it was September 11th.  Maybe I’m the sentimental one this year?  Maybe they have moved on and not let the terrorists win?   Have we started to lose the significance of the event?

As I thought about this throughout the day, I thought about one of my favorite organizations, “The Manhattan Island Foundation”, who was putting on the Brooklyn Bridge Swim.  Many people had complained that it was on September 11th.  My opinion: a swim under the Brooklyn Bridge is an excellent way to honor the day, many people found refuge on the Brooklyn Bridge as they left Manhattan.  Working in a dental office like me?  I’m not so sure…

But where is the line?  If September 11th was a holiday, it would be a week after Labor Day.  How many vacations do we need?  As an employee dependent on small business (dental office), would we be working anyway, like Columbus Day, MLK Day, etc.?  Would the recognition be lost?  If I ever saw a September 11th Mattress Sale, I think I would be physically ill.  Me, the cynic, the least sentimental person in your circle of friends?   I say NO.  No holiday.  Let us keep September 11th in our own way.  Simple, respective, personal.

Isn’t that what all holidays should be about anyway?

In the world of triathlon, Athena is a category of women who weigh 150 lbs or more (men who weigh over 200 lbs can compete in the Clydesdale category).   I have pretty much been an Athena throughout my entire triathlon career, except the year I did Ironman, when I was 129 lbs.  I’m not so sure that I am an aloof beauty but I like how that sounds.  Part of triathlon’s early appeal in the 1980′s was that it offered  a weight category.  For me, this embodies the sport of triathlon.  It is for anyone and everyone.  The triathlon community was saying we love you, we will support you, heck, we’ll even give you your own category if you have  not yet reached your weight loss goal–Just Do It!  Do you think it is coincidence that Nike, the god of victory, was Athena’s best friend?

2010 is my first year competing in the Athena category.  I decided to “embrace my Athena-ness” after a lot of soul-searching and self acceptance.  In the early days of tris, I could be competitive in my age group and would occasionally get a trophy.  The sport was small and obscure at the time so there was less competition.  Now, I know my chances of placing in my age group are very slim (no pun intended).  I came to the acceptance of becoming an Athena because although I do not do triathlons to get trophies, moving into a category where I could be competitive would help me get up in the morning to do that workout and push me towards my goals.  My goals being to have fun and  stay in shape.

The New York City Triathlon has turned into an amazing event much like the New York City Marathon.  We swim 1 mile in the Hudson River, ride 26 miles along the West Side Highway, and run to Central Park along a closed 72nd Street and through the park in our own ‘lane’.  As one of the race directors said, “It’s not every day that you can cripple 4 million commuters.”  I did the NYC Tri in the early years during the 2012 Olympic bid and have done it a few times since.

This year, I entered the race  again as an Athena and it felt like a new event for me.  They have even divided the Athena category into “39 and under” and “40 and over”.  So, not only am I over 150 lbs, I’m also “old”.  Oh boy, was  I ready for this? Had I really accepted this category?  My mantra for the weekend was “embrace your inner Athena”.   At packet pick up, I had to weigh in and state my age.  The lovely woman handling the task was gracious and acted surprised that I made the cut-off.  This is difficult, this is hard, this is accepting what I have been hoping would change my entire life.

As many young women have experienced growing up in the U.S., acceptance of body image is a huge hurdle to overcome.  I initially started doing triathlons to lose weight, not to embrace my Athena-ness, I was hoping to fight my body image.  So the whole idea of being an Athena and accepting it is a foreign way of thinking for me.  We are bombarded with so much thinness in our culture, save the occasional Christie Brinkley, who they call a “big girl” (yeah, right), that when you are not one of those skinny girls it is a constant struggle.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not  miserable.   I have had therapy, I have a lot of positive aspects of my life that have nothing to do with how I look,  I am a strong woman, both physically and emotionally.   I simply  look like the Czech side of my gene pool, I was designed to be a peasant squatting in the fields with a basket harvesting whatever they harvest in Czechoslovakia. I come from hearty stock.   I have very strong legs and that is what gets me through running and cycling.  I have never been injured, my body is designed for manual labor and in modern life, that is swimming, biking, and running for me.

In the NYC Triathlon this weekend, I came in 6th in Athena.  My goal was top 5 but I’m happy with my result given the conditions of the day.  I met two very nice women in my category and basically spent the morning chatting and getting to know them a bit, I came in ahead of them.  Another woman I was friendly with came in 2nd.  My super fit buddy from my tri club was 15th woman overall and 5th in the elite category, she finished an hour before me.  Other friends from my club were 30 minutes or more faster than me.  The reality is this, I need to focus on my competition category, I was 6th in Athena, I came in ahead of 4 others in my category, I wasn’t last.   What is my purpose?  This is my hobby, this is what I do to have fun and be fit.  This is the process, this is the challenge, enjoying it, accepting it and moving on.

Epilogue

I wrote this post shortly after finishing the NYC Triathlon.  I was struggling with how I did, I had a really rough day and felt bad about my performance.  That, combined with the whole Athena thing, was overwhelming to me.  After I wrote it, I hesitated to post it on my blog because, let’s face it, those of you who read my blog love me and your responses would have been words of encouragement and support.  It felt cheap and needy.  I sat on the article while trying to work out my feelings of inadequacy.  I went ahead and posted it here unedited because I wanted to share what I learned from the experience.

A friend of mine posted an article on her Facebook page the other day that snapped me out of wallowing in my own misery.  While the article was completely out of context for my discussion here, there was a powerful message within:

There’s a character in the August Wilson play “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” who says everyone has a song inside of him or her, and that you lose sight of that song at your peril. If you get out of touch with your song, forget how to sing it, you’re bound to end up frustrated and dissatisfied.

Upon hearing the words, I felt a huge weight lifted from my shoulders.  That was it!  I had forgotten how to sing my song!  I love doing triathlons, that is my song.  How simple is this life of mine?  I have such a small problem and I had let it take over a good part of a week.  So I weigh over 150 lbs and I didn’t do so well in a triathlon, my God, what is the tragedy in that?  I’m not sick, I have people to love and who love me, I have a job, a roof over my head, and I am a healthy woman making her way through life.  I’m living on my patch of grass.  I feel so freeeee!!

Oh yeah:  AnnieB, you are an Athena!  Ho hum…Next…

My friend picked me up at 4am, I threw my bag of gear in the trunk,  put my bike on the bike rack, grabbed my coffee and pre-race fuel, and we were off.   We got there with no problem, we picked up our race numbers, our timing chips, and swim caps.  We got body marked–in triathlons they write your race number on your arms and legs in case your body is otherwise unidentifiable–not really, but that’s how is seems every time I go through the ritual.  Oh and by the way, they also write your age on your calf so other competitors know who they are passing (or not).  This season I am 47.

I will start with stating that yes, I am an Ironman.  I am not fast although I have been fast at times, I am not a champion although I won 2 races last year (I will leave out all the reasons WHY I won and enjoy the victories for what they were), I have a few trophies from a few races but I think they would amount to less than 1% of the races I’ve completed.  I have so many finisher medals that I can’t remember the races even when I see the memento;  I have never not finished a triathlon I started even if the finish was ugly.  I have walked more miles on the run than I wish to admit, I have daydreamed on the bike, I have swum off course, and I have dilly-dallied in transition.

The race I participated in today was a small race, less than 300 people.  I find myself reminiscing about the ‘good ole’ days’ when all of the races I participated in had about 300 people with home cooking available at the end of the event.  Triathlon has certainly changed but the going through the motions of triathlon are the same for me.  Swim-bike-run, do my best, learn something from every race, and be grateful that this is what I get to do on a Sunday morning.

As I walked down to the swim I asked a couple of women to help me zip up my wetsuit and panicked when I couldn’t find my goggles.  “Um, they are on your head” one of them informed me.   “Not a fan of the pre-race” echoed in my head as a fellow member of my club mentioned to me in transition a few minutes earlier.  No matter how many tris I have done, there is always the nervous excitement that occurs before a multisport event.  The checklist–wetsuit? goggles? race-issued cap? bike? tires inflated? helmet? bike shoes? socks or no socks? water bottles filled? fuel for the bike ready? repair kit together? race belt with number attached?  running shoes ready to go?  fuel for the run? hat or no hat?  Ok, I think that’s it.  Oh wait!  Sunglasses!  Phew, that was a close one!

Today the swim was great, the bike was good, and the run was brutal.  A typical triathlon.  It was exciting, it was nerve-wracking, it was fun, it was difficult, and it was what I have done every summer for fourteen years.  At this point, I cannot imagine my life without triathlon.  The mystique is really more than it should be in my opinion but it is what I do with some of my free time.  Every race is a new experience, even if it is the same race as the year before.  When I was walking my dog when I got home, I still wanted to shout to the rooftops “I did a triathlon today! “

Throughout my triathlon adventures I have been covered with seaweed from the Florida Gulf Coast, brown goo from the lakes of Louisiana, red clay from the “dirt road from hell” in West Texas, and sludge (or whatever that is) from the Hudson River in New York City.  Today we were riding our bikes through the Pine Barrens of New Jersey and there was this weird smoke in the air.  But, it didn’t smell like smoke and it was kindof tinted.  There were billows of the stuff lofting out of the tree line and it was swept into clouds by passing cars.  It was pollen, we were coated with the stuff, all of us were green.  It was a badge of courage.  I loved it!  This is what being a triathlete  is all about…being an alien amongst my own people and proud of who I am.

When my husband and I moved to Dallas, I was lonely, it was the first move away from my core family.  I needed that dog!  For some reason, I had the idea that I wanted a Chocolate Lab.  I loved their look and they were different from a yellow or black lab.  That was me…somewhat regular with a twist.  My brother gave me a book about “The Right Dog for Me” hoping that I would choose a Basset Hound or some other mellow breed.  When I read the book, the Chocolate Lab seemed to fit right in to what I wanted.    I begged, I pleaded,  I screamed.  I would convince my husband where I failed with my parents.  He was less than enthusiastic, but not completely resistant.  It was December 21st.  A December 22nd classified ad showed a new litter of Chocolate Lab puppies in Mt. Pleasant, Tx.  I called, there were males available for $350.  December 23th, my brother, Jimmie, came to visit.  December 24th, my husband, my brother, and I drove 3 hours from Dallas to Mt. Pleasant and found a shy, quiet little puppy.  We wrote the check, put the dog in a box, and drove home 3 hours.  On the way home, we stopped at Petsmart to buy a food and water bowl, some dog food and a collar.  Yes, it should be noted here that we did everything wrong with this dog!

My brother named my dog.  Java Jones was the name of a local coffee shop in our neighborhood in Dallas.  We felt some loyalty to a ‘coffee’ name being from Seattle, but didn’t want to do the obvious “Starbuck”.  So, Annie’s Java Jones it was and we would call him “Jonesie”.  That dog was the love of my life.  He was the dog I always wanted, he was soooo chocolate brown, he was so puppy-like, he sounded like a dog when he drank from the water bowl.  It was the best sound in the world!

The only problem was that Jonesie was a bad dog.  Marley has nothing on Jonesie.  He terrorized me and my family for several years.  He was crazy, a lunatic.  I bought a book about dog training (umm, a little late) and read it like my life depended on it.  First rule: do not buy a dog at Christmas…does December 24th count as Christmas?  Second rule: be prepared to bring a dog into your home…does stopping at Petsmart after we got the dog to buy some things to get us through the first couple of days  count as being prepared?  Oops!

Incidents:

A caveat of this category is that Jonesie spent a couple of  years being an outdoor dog so we don’t know the full extent of damage that may have occurred.   All of these incidents (and more) filled the dog with pure joy, no shame, no inkling he was doing anything wrong.

-the gutter incident: Jonesie was in the back yard, I peered out to check on him and he had pulled the downspouts off the side of the house and was dragging them around the yard.  By the way, he was 6 months old.  Oh Jonesie!

-the french door incident: He ate all the wood out of the middle of a french door, when we put bitter apple or tabasco to deter him from chewing, he simply thought we were flavoring the wood for him.  Oh Jonesie!

-the grilled chicken incident: Jonesie ate grilled chicken right off the grill during a camping trip.  Oh Jonesie!

-the wife freak out incident: the dog nipped at me so much that my husband came home from work due to the hysteria and called the dog shelter to get rid of the devil dog.  (We couldn’t do it)  Oh Jonesie!

-the beach tackling incident: took a ‘family’ trip to the beach and Jonesie got out of his collar and terrorized children on the beach until I could tackle him.  We were unrecognizable from the sand covering every inch of both of us.  Oh Jonesie!

-the chocolate cake mix incident:  ex-mother-in-law, wrestling with Jonesie for a bag of chocolate cake mix+white battenburgh lace comforter=chocolate goo on expensive white comforter and mother-in-law hatred.  Oh Jonesie!

-the stealing RJ’s peanut butter sandwich incident:  my boyfriend’s young nephew was eating a sandwich and Jonesie stole it right out of his hand.  RJ wasn’t afraid that the dog launched at him, he was mad that the dog took his favorite sandwich.  Oh Jonesie!

-the eating the pastries incident:  one of the first times I spent the weekend at my boyfriend’s parents’ home.  They had put out beautiful pastries in the kitchen for everyone to enjoy throughout the morning.  While we were chatting in the living room, someone went in to the kitchen and asked where the pastries were….only a few crumbs remained.  Oh Jonesie!

-the gumpaste flower incident:  After I spent a week creating a sugar flower sculpture and Jonesie eating it right before it was to be placed on the cake.  Oh Jonesie!

-the chocolate cake incident:  Jonesie eating a chocolate cake off the counter hours before I was to take said cake to a holiday dinner.  Oh Jonesie!

-countless food stealing incidents.  Oh Jonesie!

The only photo I have of Jonesie as a puppy is one I snapped when he actually sat on his “cushie”.  This dog was crazy, he never stopped moving.  I didn’t sit down for 2 years after we got him.  I would come home from work, walk him, and then try to entertain him until he passed out.  If he actually fell asleep on the floor of the family room, no one was allowed to move.  Many times, he would climb on top of me as I lounged on the sofa and fall asleep.  My husband hated it and I’m sure there were several things wrong with it, but at least the dog was asleep.

I was talking to one of my patients about my troubles with the dog and she offered to have a “Lab behaviorist” evaluate him.  We met and the decision was that the dog was “untrainable” and recommended that we give him to a shelter and they would probably put him down.  Oh my, this was no help at all!  I was devastated, this was unbelievable.  I just wanted a dog!  Oh Jonesie!  At some point, my husband called the shelter but neither of us could really envision giving up on Jonesie.  After the news from the ‘specialist’, he  was sequestered to the back yard as I spent many hours crying and tormenting about Jonesie’s fate.  My patient, Patsy, came to my rescue.  She and I met every Friday for a year (52 weeks) and we finally got  Jonesie to walk on a leash and to sit.  That was it, those were his skills, those were his tricks.

Jonesie then became my running partner.  It was perfect, he would run with me to exhaustion, he would be tired…a tired dog is a good dog, right?  Ok, so Jonesie ran with me, 9 miles at a time, took a nap, and was ready to go again in less than an hour.  It was a fact, the dog was going to be a lot of work, forever.  As I trained for many triathlons, runs, and marathons, my best training partner was Jonesie. While we still lived in Dallas, he was part of my running group, when Terri drove up, he knew she was the last one to arrive and he would bark like crazy at her.  When we all took turns at the water fountains along our route, Jonesie would hop up and drink like he was one of us.  He moved to New York with me and my husband and he was my best buddy during the difficult time.

Eventually, I got divorced and met my boyfriend.  Jonesie was 5 then and my boyfriend became “the Jonesie whisperer” because the dog would actually listen to him.  Time went on and Jonesie was Jonesie.  He was bad, he was crazy, he was a lot of work.  My cat died during this time and Jonesie seemed lonely without her.  A few years later, we brought Margot into our home.  Typical Jonesie, irritated for about three days, then a big mush.

A few years ago, Jonesie was diagnosed with laryngeal paralysis but it was a condition that was manageable.  Basically, his breathing was affected by this but if he could stay calm and out of humidity, we could keep it under control.  We went along just fine like this until…

Easter of this year, I took the dogs to the dog park.  It was a beautiful, warm day.  A little boy wanted to throw the ball for Jonesie and I allowed it.  The boy could not throw very far so Jonesie didn’t run very much to fetch.  The little boy and the brown dog were blissfully happy…throwing and fetching…a dog’s dream.

On the way home, Jonesie couldn’t catch his breath and collapsed in the car.  I immediately drove to a 24 hour vet after a harrowing ride through the county.  They got him stabilized and I picked him up the following day.  A few days later, Jonesie couldn’t catch his breath so I took him back to the ER.  I could not believe my ears when they called me to say that he ‘wasn’t responding to treatment’ and ‘this is a difficult discussion to have’.  Not good news and NOT anything I was really ready to hear.  I rushed to the hospital and it was definitely time for Jonesie to go.  I stayed with him and he actually took two ‘real’ breaths and was gone.

What I miss:

-his eyebrows looking at me from his cushion

-his excitement over buttercream

-the sound of him drinking water

-his nose making a mark on the front window when he sees me coming home

-him peering at me through the shower curtain

-the excitement over any piece of food

-the joy of a good walk

-the art of fetching

-the excitement of a ride in the car

-the frenzy over the turn signal

-the thrill of a treat

-his ability to spell t-r-e-a-t and w-a-l-k

-his zest for life

-his big feet kicking me in the night

-his snoring

-his joy

-his love

-his comfort

-his ‘brown-ness’

Jonesie had many nicknames and I believe it is because he was so loved.  Jonesie, The Jones, Brown Dog, The Brown, Special Delivery, Special D, Dennis, JJ, Mr. Jones, Huffy Puffy, Jonesie-Vader, and My Jones.

I finally got that dog that I ‘could get when I grew up.’  No matter what I say about the hard times with Jonesie, the worst day was his last day because it was his last day with me.  Pets don’t live long enough, but without them, my life would not be complete.

I will always miss my Jonesie but will never forget the joy he brought into my life and his demonstration of what the thrill of life truly means.

Happy Jonesie

Jonesie, 11/16/96-4/7/10

Here comes the sun, it’s alright…

New post soon!!!

I feel fortunate that I was raised as an active kid.  It wasn’t always easy, my mom would really have to force me out of the house but once I was gone, I was gone.  I remember when we lived in San Diego, my brothers and I would purposely get lost on a hike then find our way home.   We would also go down to the lake and spend hours collecting tadpoles, bring them home and  watch them turn into frogs, then trek back and set them free.  I absolutely cannot imagine my life without athletic challenge or adventure.

The only organized sport I participated in consistently was swimming.  As the daughter of a Coast Guardsman, it makes sense that I knew how to swim but I loved being in the water and was on swim team through high school.  I taught myself how to do butterfly by watching Mark Spitz in the 1976 Olympics (we regularly watched sports on tv) and it suddenly became my event because not too many kids could do it.  I was never big on team sports, I liked individual events.  I think that when I was on a team, I put too much pressure on myself to perform and to not let anyone down.  I did track for a couple of years in high school, but I was the slowest 880 runner in Marin County, CA.  However, at the end of the season banquet I got the award for “most inspirational” because I showed up for every practice and completed my event in every meet.  Oh my, I remember the feeling of defeat when I was so far behind the field but I wouldn’t allow myself to quit, I just kept going and finishing.  Swimming was another story, I wasn’t too bad and usually placed in the top 3 in butterfly on a consistent basis.

Life went on after high school, I stopped swimming, I did aerobics sporadically, but I was no longer the consistent athlete of my youth.  I remember seeing coverage of Ironman as I lay on the couch hungover on a Sunday afternoon and thinking, I want to do that one day! Yeah, right, that would be impossible.   Eventually, I got married and went through dental hygiene school.  I pretty much forgot about exercising unless it was to go out dancing into the wee hours of the morning during my partying years.  When my husband and I moved from Seattle to Dallas, I was depressed and I ate away my pain.  I wasn’t working, I was a housewife with nothing to do but eat, oh, it was bad and I gained a bunch of weight, which made me feel even worse.  One day I got disgusted with myself and decided to walk around the neighborhood.  I felt like I needed to move my body, partly to get out into the world, and partly to try to lose some of the weight I had gained.  During those walks, I realized that I needed to ‘get a life’.  I wasn’t working as a dental hygienist, but went to work as a dental assistant at a nice office.  One day, one of the hygienists and I were in the sterilization room talking about working out.  I told her that I had always wanted to do a triathlon but I wasn’t a good runner, I didn’t own a bike, but I knew how to swim.  The two of us made the decision to train for a mini triathlon (now they are called sprint triathlons).  We both wanted to lose some weight so we thought a triathlon was the way to go.  I started running with her, I bought a bike, and we got into the pool and did laps.  Boy, I was out of shape.  Even doing a swim felt like an impossible task.

Mary and I trained for a Danskin (all women) sprint triathlon to be held in Austin, TX.  That was in 1997.  We went down to the race for the weekend and found ourselves bursting into tears at the drop of a hat  simply from the fear.  The race was .5mile swim/12mile bike/3.1mile run.   It was scary, it was hard but we finished, we had fun, and worst of all, we were completely hooked!   We had lost some weight, we finished it, and we were on top of the world.  We did a couple more sprint tris that summer and made plans for what we would do the next summer.  In the meantime, we built a little training group of a few women.  We did bike rides together, met at the pool for our masters workout, we went to the track early Tuesday mornings, we ran before work, we ran at the lake, we just did it.  Having someone to train with made it easier to get my butt out of bed.  At one point, I remember Mary coming to my house so we could get a spin workout in at 3:30am!  One of us must have been going out of town or something, boy, we were dedicated (or nuts).

When you do triathlons, the holy grail is to complete an Ironman (2.4mile swim/112mile bike/26.2mile run).  Through my early years of triathlon, my friends and I talked about it but I secretly decided I wouldn’t jump on the bandwagon.  After all, I was having fun with what I was doing and I never considered myself a ‘distance person’.  Each summer was a summer of tris, at least one a month from May to September.  Mary and I did one summer of all Olympic Distance races (.9mile swim/25mile bike/6.2mile run), it was hard, they were so much longer than sprints!  One year, our little group decided to train for a half Ironman, Gulf Coast.  We had a meeting at my house to talk about what it would take to train for it.  I was really getting outside my comfort zone now but I probably would lose some more weight so it was worth it, plus they were all doing it, I might as well join in.  This level of training would affect our home life (spouses, dogs, kids) but we all committed to it.   We stuck to our training plans and since it was in Florida, our husbands came with us to watch the race.  Another challenge, another level of fear, a much longer distance than ever before!  1.2mile swim/56mile bike/13.1mile run.   We all did it and wanted more!!  Well, except me, when I crossed the finish line I told my husband, “don’t let me do that again, I’m not a distance person.”   The pain I had the day after that half Ironman was incredible, I have never been that sore before or since.  I could not even touch my legs without crying, forget about walking, stairs were torture, even sleeping was painful.  All it did was affirm that I was going to stick with Olympic distance tris and watch my friends attain their long distance goals.  It was fine with me, I am a good cheerleader!

After Gulf Coast, my husband took a job in New York so my life in Dallas was coming to an end.  I was moving away from my training partners, it was such a difficult thing to think about.  They had been talking about doing an Ironman the next summer, at least I was off the hook for that!  At the time, there were only a few Ironmans available that you didn’t have to qualify to get into.  Well, my wonderful buddies chose Lake Placid, NY as their goal Ironman.  New York?  I was going to be living in New York! I would go up and cheer for them, what fun that would be!  No, they had other plans for me.  I don’t know how it happened, but all of a sudden, I was registered for Ironman.  The rationale was that I would have a goal and a distraction when we moved and we would all follow the same training plan, I would just do it on my own in New York.  Then we would all meet in Lake Placid and do Ironman together.  What fun!  Actually, the more I thought about it, it really was a good idea.  Plus, it would help me keep the weight down during the move, I definitely did not want a repeat of what happened when we moved to Dallas.  My entire lifestyle had changed, I didn’t want to lose that just because I was moving away from my friends.

So we moved and I started training on my own.  I found a pool, I mapped out running routes, and I bought a Computrainer for my bike training.  The area where I live in New York is beautiful so the best part was the running part.  Well, except for the cold but I did it.   I kept in touch with my Dallas friends through email, Mary would email me the swim workouts that our masters program was doing so I wouldn’t be stuck just ‘doing laps’  If they did a run, I would do a run, I went to the track when they did a track workout, I did Computrainer bike rides in the basement when they were riding on the roads throughout Texas, including 100 mile rides (that meant 5.5 hours on the bike, yes, in the basement).   I actually was skinny!  I was down to 129 pounds and size 6′s were getting too big.  It was great, I could eat anything and still lose weight!  I wore a bikini at the beach!

The time came for Ironman and we were all ready, we had trained, and we were going to actually do this thing.  They all flew in from Dallas and we met in Lake Placid.  It was great to see everyone, everyone was skinny and fit.  The town was full of 1800 people like us, it was great!  There was so much energy in the air, excited, nervous energy.

Ironman morning arrived and it was time to test ourselves bigger than we ever had.  Waiting for the swim to start, I saw a look of fear in my friends’ eyes that I will never forget.  What had we gotten ourselves into?  I vaguely remember the National Anthem being sung, then we waded into Mirror Lake and waited for the start. Everyone’s  Ironman starts at the same time, 7am,  so all 1800 participants start to swim at the same time.  Swimming becomes a contact sport and boy, my Ironman swim was brutal.  When the  gun went off, the 1800 people that had been standing in the water were now lying on their stomachs swimming.  There wasn’t enough room for everyone!  I thought I was going to drown, they punched me, they kicked me, they pushed me under, they swam over me.  All the training, all the work, and it was all going to be over in the first 5 minutes!  I screamed for a kayak but no one heard me.  I tried to float on my back to settle myself down, but it didn’t work.  At one point, a woman yelled across the splashing bodies, “swim like Tarzan, don’t stop, just keep going!”  That woman saved my life and my Ironman.  I did it and it worked, I swam with my head out of the water, eventually calmed down, and ended up with a decent swim time.  The bike was fine and the run was great after that swim.  I finished my Ironman in 13:49.15, you have 17 hours to be considered “a finisher”.  My finish photo sits on my bookcase and my training journal is in a file cabinet somewhere.  Occasionally I pull out my journal and look at what I did to cross the finish line.  It is unbelievable the amount of work it takes to be an Ironman. I did one other Ironman the following year.  I think one would have been enough.  I still do triathlons and try to do a half Ironman every year along with some sprints and Olympics thrown in.  Oh, and the weight thing?  I am no longer a size 6 but I am physically fit and always trying to maintain a healthy physique.

In the end, it was all worth it.  It isn’t  just about finishing an Ironman, it is the work, the discipline, the athletic challenge I set up for myself every year.  I have a new group of training buddies and keep in touch with a few people in Dallas.  Sometimes I look at my friends in the pool or out on a run or bike ride and I can see my childhood girlfriend running through the woods, my brothers riding their bikes as fast as they can, or my friends on swim team pushing the limits.  It is the same thing I’ve done throughout my life…get outside and play!  There is no time limit, so what if I’m 47?  Being active is a lifestyle, find your passion and do it!

Triathlon is my passion and all that goes with it.  I watch the Ironman Championships every year, it is an event for me.  I no longer watch it being hungover and thinking “I’ll do that one day”.  I watch it with awe that mere mortals do this thing every year, I watch it and know what every finisher put into their effort, and I watch it and remember when I crossed my Ironman finish line…the announcer said, “Ann B, you are an Ironman!”  There’s nothing like it in the world.

Finish Line Photo, Ironman 2001