Swim Clinic

Some folks have sent emails wondering when my next clinic with Tim Storsteen is: September 7.
We keep the clinics lively and routinely tease each other to help alleviate any anxiety a participant may feel about anything related to "swimming". Some of those clinics have been FUNNY with everyone laughing. I love that.

The feedback we get is predictably positive and participants continue to be really pleased with the clinic. Clinics are small (we cap at 8 people per clinic) and they are extensive. 2.5-3 hours in length to include individual video tape analysis and lots of pool time to work on the drills designed to improve the stroke. I am proud of these clinics because they have become so popular, and we have really helped people with their swimming! I love that! 3 hours is a lot of time, but people seem to get so much out of them.

www.swimfastnow.com

Enjoy and keep swimming!

The Dalmation and The Clydesdale...

I've been staying with JZ and Mark the past few days. They were kind enough to offer to let me stay until I returned to Atlanta next week. This seems like a normal summer now in many ways; I stayed with them the last 2 summers of Boulder training stints .... so being here again seems almost like coming home, or even deja'vu...

It's funny, the more I am with them, the more these two really feel like family to me. Living with them is a riot - I am not kidding. The three of us are equal attention-whores so fighting for air time is common around here. :) It's pretty funny. Often, if there is a rare moment of silence, I'll jump in and start talking... it doesn't take long for one of them to literally interrupt me and start their own blabbering.
"Heeeeeey! I'm telling a story!", I'll scream, melodramatically.
They'll smile and say, "Oh, sorry..."
"It's MY turn to get the floor!", I'll laugh.

Or, Joanna will be on the phone while Mark and I continue talking in decibels that get obnoxiously loud... soon we'll hear JZ admonish us, "Sssssshhhhh! Can you two please shut up!" We'll smile and roll our eyes at her, as if Mom has just scolded us. :)

It's been great to hang out with them at night watching the Olympics, too. With those two there is constant commentary going on, great analysis, and "who is hot?" voting. This morning I was teasing Mark that we should have considered polygamy long ago! "When you get sick of one of us, oh look, there's another to be sick of!", I teased as he laughed. Poor Mark has dealt well with the surge of estrogen around here... although I guess it's safe to say both JZ and I have enough testosterone to add to the mix so it's not complete lack of balance. :)

On Tuesday I rode with JZ for a while. At one point she noted the difference in my riding, "You're so much stronger now, I can't tell you".
I smiled. It was nice of her to say, but I also knew she was right.
We went on to reminisce about a ride I did with her just year ago at this time. We both remember it clearly. My cycling had slowly deteriorated to an all-time LOW, a combination of horrific bike fit, wrong frame size, no glut strength and chronic back issues that were about to intensify. I started that ride with her (key word: started) and lasted no more than 7 minutes on her wheel before I was about to blow. This was WARM UP, people. I'm not diminishing JZ's strength on the bike but even she later admitted to me she knew something was seriously wrong. No one gets dropped in warm up.

So today she said, "Remember THAT ride? And look at you now."
"Yeah, but you're taking it easy today", I answered.
"WHATEVER. I was taking it easy then, too!", she balked.
I laughed at that. And she was right .... totally out of shape me in August 2008 is stronger than I was last year right before the bike crash in October. That's amazing to me, and has really hammered home the fact that if you're on a bike not right for you, or are poorly fit on your bike, you just won't ride well. Period.

The day before, while watching the Olympics, we saw that great Budweiser commercial from the Superbowl - the one with the dalmation and the clydesdale.
It's worth a view, even if you've seen it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug6Me4hboTU

While riding I told Joanna she was the dalmation to my clydesdale, and she smiled.
I then said I had two goals:
1) To be able to do the whole Horsetooth ride with her and not get dropped. (This is a great 100-mile ride starting in Boulder that I did one time with JZ in 2006. I lasted 3 hours and 58 minutes with her before I completely imploded. She had to stand down 4 times to wait for me during that ride, too.)
I then told her my super-second goal:
2) To do that ride with her and when we had 30:00 left, hearing her say, "Ok, Carole. Get in front and pull my ass home!" She would say that not because she was tired, but as the final Apollo gesture to Rocky -- preparing me for battle, fully confident and ready to ride.

She smiled and said, "Well, ok. We have a year. Let's get to it."
I love her for that. She didn't laugh and tell me there was no way in hell that would ever happen. Instead, she was right on board, totally supporting me and wanting to help. And I will tell you one thing for certain -- if you ever have a dream, or something really important to you, you could have no greater ally than to have Joanna Zeiger on your side. If I can make a comeback, she will no doubt be the instrumental piece that makes that happen.

Thucydides:
"The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out and meet it."

5430 Racing...

Yesterday was the last of the 5430 series (5430 Sports in Boulder is the name of the race series - 5430 for the elevation), the long course race at which I placed 2nd (behind JZ) in 2006. This summer I have had the huge privilege of working for 5430 Sports as the manager of their expos and sponsors. It's been a different view looking at races from this side of the fence.

Additionally, what an HONOR. Last month I auditioned for and was hired to be the commentator for The Peak (Olympic) race, which will be broadcast on OLN at the end of August. It was a BLAST and I had such a great time doing it. I'm uncertain how the broadcast will turn out, and we're always our own worst critics of our work, but hopefully I did a decent job. Mostly I wanted to honor the athletes and speak well about their efforts at hand. I hate hearing race commentators who don't know triathlon - sometimes they say things that are soooo bizarre -- and any triathlete watching it catches it. It was funny to be interviewing and commentating on my friends, too! It was difficult a few times not to throw in some inside jokes.... but I was good, I kept it professional. :)

So... yesterday was the Long Course race and I deliberately kept myself very busy at the expo so as not to think about the race I wasn't in. With the expo duties and with tons of my friends racing, I decided to just focus on these things. Sometimes it is good for all of us to take the attention off ourselves. 'There is definitely something bigger and better than YOU', I say to myself almost each day. :)

JZ led the race from start to finish. I was out on a mountain bike during the run to give encouragement to all my friends who were racing. That was FUN! Man, I saw so many people, most yelling hello to me during their race! I would laugh each time and tell each person to shut up and do their race! :) Poor Gollnick got glass in her foot at T1, pretty severely it sounded, and had to dismount during the bike to get medics to help her remove it. You should have seen the pain on her face during the run - you knew each step was killing her, but typical Big G, she never quits. Right around mile 12 I gave JZ a split that 1:30 back no one was in sight; knowing that she could ease up if she wanted.

She had crashed on her bike earlier in the week and I could tell that her ribs were hurting, so I decided to try to take her mind off the pain. Since her win wasn't in jeopardy and I know how great her sense of humor is, I biked in front of her by about 40 feet and dropped my shorts so my bare butt was hanging off the bike seat. I was totally embarrassed to do this but for comic value, I'll do most anything. :) EVERYONE ELSE around Joanna saw me - spectators, age groupers on loop 1 ("Hey, great ass!", someone yelled) .... I was so embarrassed, but for JZ, it was worth it. I looked back expecting to see her falling over with laughter but she was stone-faced. She had to be in a lot of pain, I thought.

I continued to bike but pulled over when I saw her husband Mark (my shorts pulled up by then) and told him I had just mooned Joanna. A huge smile came to his face and he put his arm around me while shaking his head and laughing.

After the race I asked Jo what she thought of my ass and she didn't know what I was talking about. ??
"COME ON!! Are you serious? I mooned you right around mile 12!!", I screamed.
" Oh, dammit! I missed that!", she said.
"Great. Every other fricking person at the race saw it except you. Nice!"

She thought it was hysterical, and went on to tell everyone, "Carole mooned her huge white ass at me during the race and I missed it!"
Probably not the notoriety I need, but what the heck. ?

Later that day I went for a lone bike ride along the race course, imagining the pace of the leaders just 10-hours earlier compared to mine right then. I am a faint shadow of the athlete I was in 2006 when I did this race .... but in other ways I am a much better and much different person now. That's a comparison of two different things, but it's a distinction I've noted inwardly.

I'll be heading back to Atlanta in a couple weeks and I've been very touched and flattered by how many of my friends out here have told me they wish I was staying. I had lunch today with Stoner and he told me he thought I'd be surprised by how many people have made comments that they wished I wasn't leaving, etc. That's so nice. I've had the opportunity to make some good friendships, and enrich others that were budding. I'm glad for this, and glad in some ways I was forced to be out of triathlon this year.

I've loved having a social agenda this summer that's been full, a stark contrast to my normal summers of living the life of a monk with the discipline and constant training. This time, I've met friends for dinner or movies or just hang-outs almost every night and weekends the whole summer. It's been fun! Early in the summer I started seeing a guy named Dan who still completely cracks me up, mostly with his ability to stand right up to my alpha-self with refusal to be streamrolled by me. We are constantly in wars of sarcasm and who can out-wit the other -- I'm amazed by his ability to emerge the victor - some of the time. :) I laugh as he still constantly says, "God, you're a train wreck!", referring to my energy, zooming all over the place, never sitting still, never shutting up, etc. A while back when I told JZ that he called me 'a train wreck', she laughed to say, "Wait until he meets your friends! You'll seem normal!"
Funny!

I see how self-absorbed and manic busy I was now that I have all the time/energy that triathlon used to take from me. I'm not complaining, I had to devote that and will have to do it again if I return, but it certainly doesn't allow someone to really nurture friendships - or anything else. So.... it's been nice to be out here and just support other people, and I think I have become a much better friend, and better person, because of it.

I hope I keep these lessons learned close to me as I prepare for the impending next chapter. Is this life chapter #263 for me? It seems like it...
Thats ok. Lots of chapters in a life means a life lived fully. If nothing else, I hope I'm doing that.

Boulder days...

It's been fun to have Heather in town for a few days. She's been busy preparing to defend her title in Louisville at the end of the month, and she looks as fit as I always see her. The other day she did a hard ride up to Ward (a 20-mile climb); I was glad for this and told her to FRY herself so I could keep up on the easy ride I was planning to do with her the next day. :) I'm allowed to ride for 2-hours, but no more than that...

So, the day after her Ward ride we met up to do an "easy spin" together. We scooped up Amanda Lovato and the three of us rode a great loop through Hygiene. Amanda had ridden with Heather the day before to Ward, so I was relieved the two of them were a bit fried so that I could keep. It was a nice day out, and the girl chit-chat was nice. Normally those two ride like their pants are on fire - so an easy day for them was super for me!

A few nights ago my friend Stoner (Michael Stone) had his group over who are training for Ironman WI. Stoner invited me to do their easy run workout with them, and then stay and be a part of their small group dinner with Chris Legh. Chris was definitely the headliner, of course, but it was really fun to go and help with some questions - and listen to Chris tell funny stories about Ironman, his struggles, and his conquests. If you ever, EVER have a chance to listen to him do any sort of talk (or go to his camps) - GO!! He is HILARIOUS and really has an easy-going way about him.

He retold a GREAT story about a blow-up year in Kona .... it was getting dark out and he was still out there running (walking). As he was in the Energy Lab (the turn-around in Kona where you have about 8-miles to go, a volunteer handed him a glow-stick. In the moment he got really pissed at this and relived it to us telling us he said, "This is BULLSHIT! Do you know who I am?? I can make it home in 35 minutes if I have to...!!" He wasn't being arrogant, it was funny, and he was expressing the frustration you know he had to feel not having the race he'd expected. He went on to tell us about walking to the finish with the glow-stick ("she was right! I did need it. She knew..."), and all the stupid things he did that day during his race that led to his downfall. He was REALLY funny about it all, and all of his stories. He's a great speaker.

After the talk with the WI group, he and I stood around Stoner's kitchen talking about motivation, and the motivation to do triathlon. He asked how my back was doing, but also said, "How's the head?" (referring to how hard it is to manage an injury mentally), which I thought was really kind of him. Most people just think of the athlete and not the person. "Mate, just have some fun right now. Go kayak. Forget triathlon right now. Just go have fun. Who really gives a shit about triathlon? Your real friends really don't care what you do in triathlon. The others only like you when you are a success. Go do for yourself."

I've thought a lot about that... the "success" bubble and how worthy people somehow then think you are, and how they disappear when you are off the radar. Interesting when you are still the same person. What changed, other than results on paper?

And so it goes.