Looking Silly and Doing it Anyway

When I was in my late 20's, I was newly married, living in the suburbs of Chicago and trying to be the considerate wife.  I took a Saturday morning and offered to go to a particularly busy Dunkin' Donuts and get breakfast.  As I got out of the car, I would eventually trip on the handicapped ramp, and what I would later find out, break my ankle.  I suppose there is something a bit poetic about a lifetime obese person breaking their ankle outside Dunkin' Donuts, but in my case, I went with the "nothing to see here" attitude.  I forged on and pretended not to notice the blood emerging from my skinned knee and there was no way I would allow the multitude of patrons there see me limp.  The reality is I have a lifetime of clumsy accidents.  A couple of years after this, I would go on to trip on a lego at the bottom of the stairs while I was carrying a basket of laundry and break that ankle a second time.  There was the wrist fracture while roller blading in downtown Chicago, when I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk.  The ligamentous thumb tear requiring surgery when I was in martial arts.  Try explaining to the hand surgeon,"you see it was a man with a rubber knife."  Even my epic hip fracture was a stress fracture that got finished off slipping on a blanket.  Yes, I am that person.  I choke on air.  Trip over chairs.  Walk into a door that was clearly marked "PULL" and I tried to push it. 

All these things, plus multiple other incidents coupled with being last to be picked for teams in elementary school and junior high harassment has given me a very well developed fear of looking silly.  To be honest, it has held me back to a degree.  There was the fear of trying new things like Zumba early in my fitness journey.  I had convinced myself I would look like Elaine Benes on that fateful episode of Seinfeld.

Yoga was probably a no go too as I was not that coordinated and would likely fall out of the pose landing on my nose.  The gym?  OK no.  I would never be as fit as those people and me trying to run 85 pounds heavier would just have not been a pretty site.  I convinced myself everyone was watching and I looked silly.  Then there was obstacle racing.  I have a horrible fear of heights meaning a ten foot wall is a bit harrowing.  Yes, thing after thing shot down in my own mind keeping me in that dark place of obesity and unhealthy living. 

But, if you think about it, a lot of people have had great success daring to look silly.  I mean really, think about the guy who decided cleaning dog poop out of your yard was a sustainable business.  Imagine what his friends thought.  You are making a living cleaning up poop?  Yep.  He is.  There are a whole host of silly inventions we, as consumers, have decided we cannot live without all because someone dared to look silly.

Fast forward to Elaine pictured above.  Yes.  She looks silly, but this has become one of the most iconic Seinfeld episodes ever.  The "Elaine Dance" is a thing.  Very few adults would say they had not heard of this.  So, for me, I guess I had to decide what was the worst thing about putting myself out there.  I would look silly or I would fail.  Neither thing is fatal but not doing it....I would run the risk of a life being something less than epic.  So yes, at this point, I have done the Zumba.  At that point the instructor was a latin woman who took her Zumba to heart and yes, I likely looked like Elaine but I did it anyway, finding a lot of other Elaines in that class.  I have done the yoga and found the centered focus stretching to add much more to my psyche than any risk of looking silly.  As to the gym?  Taking the first step in is what mattered.  Yes, I have stumbled off the treadmill, come off the rower seat, hit myself in the thigh with a heavy weight and had a variety of little mishaps.  I may have even been a bit vocal at the top of the ten foot obstacle at my last Spartan Race.  That is me.  Clumsy at times, looking silly at others.  At the end of the day, it comes down to getting over the fear, taking the chance and laughing off the mishaps because that is where your potential lives.  Above all the most important thing is finding the right answer to the question:  What if I fall?  Erin Hansen answered it best with "but darling, what if you fly?"

Living on the Hills

As I walked into Orangetheory yesterday, I was informed it was strength day.  In that joint strength day is code for interval hill climbs for the treadmill portion of class.  OK.  Again.  Again with the incline training.  As of late, we seem to have had a lot of these types of days.  I am not sure if Orangetheory is training me to scale Kilamanjaro or just wants my butt to look good in a bathing suit this summer.  Either way, incline days are humbling for me.  I have made the commitment to not run on these days.  First, it trains a different muscle group, second the carefully crafted titanium compression screw in my left hip has made it so recovery walking days are important if I am going to keep moving.  So, removing the element of balls to the wall sprinting tests my patience and somehow always makes me feel like I am falling behind.  Nonetheless, here I was walking at 4.5mph at a 10% incline and I was suddenly reminded of the Spartan Race I did in March. 

It was my second ever Spartan Race.  There were so many unique things about that.  It was a winter race, the first ever offered by Spartan.  It was at Greek Peak, a ski resort here in Upstate New York and it was cold.  Twelve degrees cold.  As I approached the start line, I was able to get a lay of the land.  In Spartan racing, you are not given a course map or a guide to the obstacles.  This is by design.  I am to show and be prepared for anything.  Just like in life, you never know what you will encounter, so be ready.  As in any Spartan, there are two four foot walls to hop over before getting to the chute.  Beyond this we see a hill.  This hill.  The start line was at the base of the bunny hill. 

This did not seem so bad, I could handle it.  As with any race, the gun goes off and it is go time.  We take off and there are other runners taking off at what appeared to be lighting speed, sprinting up this hill.  At 12 degrees outside, and realizing I still, what I then was informed, had three miles to go I settled into my ever humbling power walk, tried to push the competitive urge out of my mind to run, and up I went.  I must admit, the sprinters around me pokes that crazy competitive nature of mine, but I held steady.  What I would learn after that hill was to the left of that summit was a flattened area followed by this double black diamond ski slope to climb.

That is the summit in the distance way up in center of the picture.  I would find half way up that hill that a lot of the early sprinters, now out of breath and stopping may be rethinking their quick out of the gate to start.  This race was filled with the notion that just when you thought you were as high as you could go, there was another hill, and another and another.  Then, just when you think it is safe and you can finally descend, the descent is through an unmarked tree line between two double black diamonds and is icy which completely debunked the theory that once you hit the top downhill is so much easier.  Trek after trek. Up and down.  As challenging as it was, something great happens on the hills.  Forced to abandon the balls to the wall sprint, gives time to appreciate a few things. There is the view at the top.  The majestic view of a beautiful crisp day in the mountains of New York, like this view at the top of the tubing hill that I climbed after a harrowing crawl over ice under barbed wire.  This hill looked like victory at the top.  The symbolic conquering of so  many fears.

There was also the notion during this race, that unlike the treadmill there is not a stop key.  I can't just decide I am done in the  middle of a treeline between two double black diamond ski slopes.  That  there is really nowhere to go but forward.  There is a certain amount of terror associated with being in that spot, yet a certain amount of accomplishment in getting through it and finally finding the one easy downhill.  It came after trekking up an unmarked icy tree line with a sandbag on my shoulder.  What awaited at the top was the ability to sit on said sandbag and gloriously ride the slope down to the bottom.  Just an amazing ride after 2.5 miles of fight.   

So, as I climbed the hills yesterday on the treadmill I was reminded that although it is not the badass balls to the wall flat road sprint I prefer, I realize that sometimes the sprint is just a means to an end.  Go hard, go fast, get done.  It is the hills where we see the challenge.  The hills where we slow down and appreciate the surroundings and realize just what we are made of when quitting is not an option.  It reminds me of what can be accomplished when I don't let quitting be an option in other aspects of my life.  So many times we search for instant gratification.  Let me just pay extra for overnight shipping, I want it now.  Let me just drive instead of walk so I can get there fast.  Let me play the lottery and I will be rich by Tuesday and not have to work.   The reality is in health as in most things, it just doesn't work that way.  You have to suffer the challenges and take your time to appreciate every little obstacle overcome.  Most importantly taking the time to work the hills means appreciating the beauty that is the journey instead of the disappointment of not being at the destination.  So far now I will keep perfecting my hill technique and try to reap the benefits of a hard earned glute and remember at the end of any race as in life there is the glorious moment you get to jump the fire with pizzazz before finding the next hill.

Ten Items or Less, Facing Limits

There is a fairly upscale grocery store about a mile away from my house in Upstate NY. It really is a nice place. Lots of specialty items and beautiful produce which makes it like a sanctuary of sorts for a self proclaimed clean eating foodie like me. There really only is one problem. Their checkouts are extremely slow. Their staff is so overly friendly that long conversations tend to ensue with patrons.  I realize the art of conversation is largely lost in grocery check out lines anymore and I should really appreciate the friendliness of it all and believe me, I do, but on the other hand, I am generally in a hurry.  Managing five other people's schedules on top of my own 50 plus hour work week while training for races and running a team means my time for lengthy conversation at the store with a stranger is somewhat limited.  Consequently, I really only go to this particular store when I plan to go through the express lane.

Yesterday was one of those days.  I had exactly 20 minutes between work, gym, school events, and the kids arriving home on the bus when I would get myself ready for work again.  I had in my head what I needed and had to keep it below ten items.  We all know what happens when you go over ten items.  There is the bold checker who will throw you out of line, or the less brave checker who will point it out but do it "just this once, but you really belong in the regular line."  Let us not disregard the fellow shoppers who count and give you the look of disdain when that 11th and 12th items appear on the belt. 

When I hit the checkout line, I frantically counted the items in my basket and I got to think about the limits in my own proverbial basket that held me captive in a place of obesity and poor health for so long.  There was the limit where I had convinced myself I would never be one of those "skinny girls."  My whole family was overweight, so this must be a genetic problem and there was a genetic limit as to how far I went regardless of the diet and fitness tools I had at my disposal.  That seems to be the thing with limits.  A personal truth complete with rationalization and acceptance.  So many of these existed for me. 

There was the idea that I could eat carbs and still lose weight and be healthy despite my insulin resistance.  You see the problem there was that genetics thing referenced above.  Then the idea that I could not be a runner.  I couldn't breathe when I ran.  I had knee issues as a kid, but I could walk and I would just be good at that.  On that same line of logic, although I love sports, I would only be a recreational player because I could never reach the level of play the superstars did.  Oh I could play but being a recreational player was good enough.  Besides, at this age I had given up sports entirely because of too things.  I was too old and a mom and really I didn't have time to work out let alone think about any sort of physical achievement.  One limit rolled into another until I found myself resigned to the notion that I was what I was.  Settling for an overweight mediocre version of myself.  Settling for the person I was instead of who it was I absolutely could be. 

Nonetheless, when Istarted this journey, I decided that I would try to get to the best mediocre version and put exercise first.  Given that I work shift work as a nurse practitioner in an ER plus have children, sometimes those workout times were not ideal.  They were 5:00am some days and 7:30 pm other days.  As I tried out this crazy schedule I realized the "too busy" limit was simply self imposed.  As I unpacked the other limits, take running for example, I came to know I couldn't breathe when I ran not due to exercise induced asthma, my self diagnosis, it was simply I was out of shape and needed some time and dedication to work into it.  In an age of instant gratification, I felt as though if I could not do it in pretty short order it probably could not be done   As to the genetics...embracing my insulin resistance and cutting the carbs has me at my lowest weight in my adult life.  As to physical achievement, the day I rowed a good distance and met criteria to be an "elite rower" or the day I found myself running a base pace in "runner" category as opposed to "jogger" or "power walker" I realized that my acceptance of never running so many years ago was simply a place of comfort and not truth. 

Over time I have come to see I had so many limits.  So many rationalizations. Worse yet my rationalizations were so mainstream common and socially acceptable that it was so easy to believe every last limit was absolutely real.  Later, I would come to understand that this alternate reality only becomes a prison of poor health and despair.  As I unpacked and will continue to unpack, all of these onto the proverbial grocery store belt I realize there is so much more open when do as, as the Wolf of Wall Street says,and realize "the things standing between me and my own goals were the proverbial bullshit stories I kept telling myself as to why I could not achieve them."

As I finish unloading my groceries onto the belt I find I have an 11th item.  I triumphantly put it on the belt with a little smile as I make eye contact with the checker.  She says nothing.  I think in that moment how appropriate that my 11th item is the coveted pint of red velvet Halo Top, the single greatest clean eating dessert to come down the pike in years, reminding me that once again, as my limits continue to come down one at a time, the best is yet to come.

Conquering Hadley Junior High Gym....at 47

In my mind's eye I can see it all very clearly. The light marbled muted red ringer tee with the white box on the front where my name was written in black Sharpie. There was the corresponding polyester red shorts that made up my horrible gym uniform in junior high. This uniform never seemed big enough to cover all of my childhood fat rolls. There was the stale smelling locker room and the hallway of shower heads we were supposed to walk through on the days of the "full shower" as dictated by our gym teacher. On less strenuous days we were told to "spot shower" which required using these super stiff weird smelling green towels to hit the important parts. All of this produced instant anxiety for this formerly fat child. It was the 80's. Childhood obesity was not an epidemic. So, the simple changing in a locker room full of skinny girls was enough cardio for me, however the class that followed said changing was always the hardest.

In previous posts, I described my complete fail at trying to conquer our several time a year mile and a half run known as The Cooper. Well,  there were other times of the year I would emerge from the locker room and be met with an entirely different form of torment.  The rope. That thick long brown ragged looking thing that hung from the ceiling that mocked me several times a year all through school. One by one kids would scale up that with some sort of weird super human strength I clearly did not possess.  When it was my turn I would slowly go up to the damn thing self conscious in my uniform and hear the murmurings of some of the other students as they were as sure as I was there was no way I could do this. I would give it a weak attempt and then move on. Just let me sit down. Better yet. Skip me. Traumatized for a day, and then putting the rope experience in a box in my mind where I would tuck it away until I was faced with it again. Year after year. Time after time. That rope mocked me over and over again.

I must admit. When I began toying with the notion of Spartan Racing that rope did weigh heavily on my mind. I knew I couldn't do it. I knew I would do 30 burpees when I was faced with it. In. Y first race, I did just that right there on the third baseline at Fenway. I suppose if you have to do burpees the third baseline at Fenway is not all that bad. For my second Spartan Race at Greek Peak in upstate NY, I thought I would embrace the rope burpee experience and put a different spin on my previous failings. I began to call the rope climb "Amy's Burpee Station". It proved to be just that. I must admit though, although I may have felt like a complete badass doing burpees in the snow, a part of me almost felt the rolls of fat that used to exist under that marbled red shirt and polyester shorts when I was 13, as I watched Spartan after Spartan climb and ring the cowbell.

Last night, I had the opportunity to go to a Spartan training class for the first time. I walked into the gym and there it was. The rope. Sleek and black.  It was like an updated badass version of the mockery I had experienced so many years ago. I could almost hear it whisper,"we meet again. Oh. And I win". However, I would learn, through my awesome coach, that the rope climb was technical. He broke it down, a step at a time teaching me the Spanish wrap...and then it happened. I climbed that badass rope. Forty-seven years old and I climbed a rope for the first time in my life. Reflecting on that had me come to understand two very important things. First, even two years into this journey to health and fitness there are still old demons that exist in the virtual boxes in my mind that can be slain. Second, I had allowed myself to believe that I would never climb a rope. Self imposed limitation. I am coming to realize my self imposed limitations kept my feet firmly on the ground for decades when the reality is, the view halfway up the badass black rope is so much better than I could have ever imagined. So, as of today I bid a fond farewell to the obstacle formerly known as "Amy's Burpee Station" and dare to dream of ringing that bell at the top of that muddy rope in three weeks because that view will be amazing.

From Catcher to Spartan to Yogi

Coming out of Baptiste Power Hot Yoga tonight completely drenched got me thinking about how I ended up in a yoga studio in the first place. Despite years of obesity I did play sports. All through my childhood including high school, I played softball. I was a catcher. I was up and down in the dirt participating in the game from what I always thought was the greatest vantage point. In my 30's I would train for 8 years in tae kwon do. I even taught that discipline. I wore my third degree black belt with pride as I broke boards and sparred with the best of them.  To be fair, being 5 ft 10 did give me a pretty decent reach. Through the last two years I took up high intensity interval training and Spartan racing. Fast moving balls out training, racing in mud, scaling walls. That is my style. So....how is it I find myself in a yoga studio too?  Clearly I am not a yoga person.

Let me back up on that a minute. In college, the good people of the University of Iowa did not feel my undergraduate nursing degree would be complete without a PE class. When you go to a Big 10 university there are plenty of PE options. I opted to join three of my favorite sorority sisters in a Hatha Yoga class taught by an older lady that was so serious about her animal poses she had the corresponding animal noises to go along with each one. Her zeal for making said noises Left four giggling sorority girls struggling to keep it together. To this day when we get together we can still pull of a lion in unison. No. This experience did not give me the yoga bug.

As I watched yoga gain popularity, what I thought I understood about it given my badass boardbreaking ways, I thought there is no way I would ever do that.  I had visions of lit candles, incense and the whole hippie culture.  Perhaps a chant or two I clearly could not understand the point of.  That is until I had my arm twisted by a trainer of mine who also taught yoga. Seemed odd. A military vet and MMA fighter. Taught yoga?  But he wanted me to go. He had coined that phrase that plays in my head every time I face a new challenge,"you can. You just don't know you can". I owed him a lot at that point and politely agreed to go.  Although, I knew nothing about modern yoga.

When I arrived at the studio and laid out the mat and desperately tried to act like I was not completely a fish out of water I noticed it was hot. I mean really HOT. Yes. I had stumbled into hot yoga. As class progressed I found it was not what I expected. There were not hippies. There were no animal noises or weird chants. Just two ex military vets and martial artists challenging my muscles to stretch further, balance longer and focus on the firing of every fiber.  There was power through the basic flow. I found this took focus, careful breathing and quiet just like the moment before I would plow my foot through two inches of wood, or catch that pitch and throw it low to second base to catch the runner, or throw the spear in a race. This was no joke. Laser focus, fire up, power through, don't quit. This was a new challenge. The challenge to take my abilities and slow it down and gain absolute measured control. In doing so I found the weak spots. The muscle difference side to side, the tightness that comes from 35 pound crunches and 70 pound deadlifts. By the time I was done I was loose, relaxed, drenched and knowing with 100% certainty I needed this is my life.

Tonight, my yogi used the phrase,"enter into your yoga space". I find that place to be that place I am aware of every little thing going on in my body. Take control and focus. I suppose that is the key to this health journey in the long run.  Now if I could just make that dancer pose look more like a dancer  and less like a wobbly baby giraffe.....

Rest Day Realizations

A while back I did a post about recovery days. Anyone who knows me knows I struggle with recovery days. In fact, until today, I have not had one in three weeks. Today, there was not an Orangetheory session that worked with my shift. I was set on going  to the regular gym for a run until I finally tuned into the right hamstring that was sore from squats and the left hip where the hunk of titanium serves as a very reliable barometer during rainy weeks like this. I was sore. Time for a day off. I used to think that my fear of recovery days was based on the irrational belief I would take a day off and wake up the size 16 I started at. Despite my advanced medical degrees, somehow I believed this was a thing. Last night, however I was talking with a member of my team. As we swapped stories I began to realize my irrational fear of recovery days encompassed a whole other thing.

As a busy working mom of five, the last two decades have encompassed meeting my full time work obligations, managing a household, sports practices, groceries, endless loads of laundry, doctors appointments and the bazillion other things that occupy every minute of my day. That is until evening. I am a firm believer in early bedtime, 8:00 for young kids. Yes, the science behind them needing their rest and all of that....but more importantly my time. When I was home and off at night 8:00 became this magical moment. It was my time to shut it down. I became a professional unwinder. I had made myself a cocoon of sorts in the family room. I have a big leather couch with an electric blanket. I had a kitchenette in that room completely stocked with snacks and a 65 inch TV. Yep. cocooned in and winding down. Night after night. Snack after snack. Mindless TV show after mindless TV show. Yes ma'am. I was living the unwinding dream. Over time I would find out a few things. This cocoon had a problem. The snacks may have brought me momentary comfort....but they made me fat.  The comfy couch was great, but I was alone there. So what was this really?  It was hiding. I locked myself away in a sea of stupid TV and snacks which offered me exactly nothing but perhaps the sluggishness that follows the large ingestion of carb laiden snacks I mistook for comfort.. I was not unwinding or chilling. I was isolated and miserable.

When I committed to my health journey it was hard at first. The shell of that cocoon was hard to break free of. Hiding in that space sure seemed easier than burpees. I decided early on for every little tiny thing I achieved I would reward myself with something that required being out of the house and did not involve food. Therefore I now have a nail tech named Mary who is more like a close girlfriend who knows more about me than most people. Not to mention I now have a healthy appreciation for a badass mani. I suppose the same could be said for my hairdresser who has a flare for the creative and is magical with color.  Little nonfood rewards, one step at a time. As I lost the fat, I lost that terrible cocoon that imprisoned me for decades and am finally starting to become that butterfly that was hiding inside. I felt pretty strongly about this notion a while back and even got a butterfly tattoo.  This was my outward way of reminding myself that butterflies do not go back into the cocoon. In fact, I do not own the blanket anymore. It has gone the way of the fat clothes as it provides only a painful reminder of nights without purpose and a life half lived.

Putting all of this in perspective yesterday listening to my team member  it dawned on me. I may have been equating rest not only with losing gains but with a retreat into that cocoon prison I once held so dear. Probably yet another irrational fear like waking up fat. Nonetheless, this rest day will be over soon and the butterfly tattoo is still firmly inked on my left ankle (yah, it's super cool) and I realize any retreat or loss of gains is a choice not a destination from a well earned rest day. So tomorrow at 10:00 am this badass butterfly chooses to fly Orangetheory style.

Fat Clothes

People like me who have suffered a lifetime of obesity generally have a fairly large clothing collection. There is the highest weight clothes, that clothing size you convince yourself you will NEVER surpass, yet always seem to, down to that outfit you buy to inspire yourself to get off the dime and get moving. In my case that outfit sat for a long time with the tags still on it. Then there are the clothes in between. Through my two year journey I slowly worked my way through my closet.  Then there was the moment in time I made the decision that my closet would no longer be on a continuum. I would rid myself of all of it. Have only my size. That day I gave away nine bags of clothes. Terrifying yet cathartic at the same time. I was a 10. In my mind the perfect size for me. Yet I kept working and now seem to be an astonishing 2/4. I had never even imagined this was possible but  here I am, well out of my comfort zone forging new ground.

This brings me to the sweatshirt. The one article of clothing I saved. The one article I am wearing right this very moment. It is a light blue zip up XXL that says "Sheboygan". I had gotten it on a trip to Wisconsin at the Blue Harbor Lodge with my boys after a trampoline meet. It now has holes along the cuffs. It is tattered and huge on my size 2 frame. Yet here I sit in comfort wearing it anyway. I have spent some time wondering what it is about this that I still wear it.  It is not significant in terms of my favorite sports team (go Cubs) or representative of something significant. It says,"Sheboygan" for God's sake.

Then today....it came to me.  The hardest part about being fit at this point is considering the 45 years that came before this. The 45 years I could not walk this walk. The feeling as though I had wasted time. Reflecting on those years, I can come up with a reason things went the way they did, the bullying in junior high and high school, the miserable failure that ensued as I tried to huff and puff my way up hernia hill in 7th grade, the struggle of trying to work my way through undergrad,  grad school, infertility, foreign adoptions, kids, work.... always something.  Give me an age and I can give you a reason why I was not healthy.

As I look at the torn cuffs of my sweatshirt tonight I see all those bumps in the road. Every hard thing and life challenge that came my way. I think about without all of those struggles, all of those hard things, and I realize. Every single one of those have made me who I am today. The Sheboygan sweatshirt suddenly the perfect marriage between the fat girl I always was to the fit adult I am now. Suddenly my inability to part with it makes perfect sense. I need to feel the comfort of the only thing that fit two and a half years ago, yet see the signs of the battle scars that came long before that. The bridge between a lifetime of obesity and fitness.

So here I sit. Old and new combined, no longer regretting time wasted being unhealthy. Realizing that every rip in the cuffs holds a different story of struggle.  Struggles I now have a handle on. So... to those who may think I probably should get rid of this sweatshirt? Not today my friend. Not today. I am a firm believer in never forgetting where I came from. In this case, I apparently came from Sheboygan.

Row Row Row Your Boat

The water drum rower. This should be renamed "torture device from hell".  Two years ago when I stepped into Orangetheory Fitness for the first time I had never sat on a rower. How hard could it be? Pull the handles and there ya go. Yeah. No. It would take me months and months to not have to take breaks in my rowing. There are so many components. Drive with the legs, enagage the core, lean back, pull with the arms, two count recovery back, catch the water with he rudder and go again. Adjust the watts down for long rows, up for sprint rows. Two years in, I now think I have it. Covering the meters a little faster as time marches on. In fact, I thought it had it all down and had more or less hit my maximum efforts. One hundred meters consistently around 18 seconds. Two thousand in about 6.5 mins. Yep I had this.  S

Enter this week. My trainer fresh off her latest conference pulled up a rower next to the rest of us. "Row with me". Her pulls on the rower were painfully slow for me. Not my usual stroke rate of 36.  She kept saying if we slowed it down and worked on truly recovering for two counts we would get further. I had a hard time believing that. Slower meaning further?  Wasting time recovering when I could be pulling again?    I began to think about how many times we power through life. Pukking daster and faster, believing we got this. Stuck in the notion if we pull faster we will get it done but at times it ends up being like a hamster on the wheel. The proverbial road to nowhere.

I then began to wonder what would happen if I slowed down the recovery. This is a tall order for me as anyone who knows me would say. I work 50-60 hours a week as an emergency room nurse practitioner at two different hospitals. I have four children under this roof all at different stages in life with different demands, a fifth child on her own with her own child, plus races to prepare for and a motivational team to run. Balls to the wall 100 miles an hour is my life.  Maybe the thing to do is to Pause a bit and embrace the two count recovery. Pausing to exhale before driving again.

As to my row today?  The newfound focus on recovery put me at 1190 meters in four minutes, and 655 in 2 minutes , top of my class a personal best at both times. Beating the 20 year old boys a few rowers down did not hurt this grandma either!  Embracing the recovery had brought me the win.  So here we go life, drive hard, lean back, pull hard, exhale, two count recovery and catch the wave.....