Flashback Saturday: DLS>DNF>DNS

I thought this blurb from Thursday, April 26, 2007 was appropriate because it is the first time I realized that there was glory in just crossing a finish line as opposed to PR'ing or winning something.

DLS>DNF>DNS

Sports psychology - it's everywhere. Everyone thinks they're a shrink, and everyone into sports thinks they're a sports shrink. Every day you'll see these cheeky little phrases that people love to use to pump themseleves up. You know which ones I'm talking about: pain is weakness leaving the body. Runners get more done before 6am than most people do all day. If you can think it, you can do it. Be the ball. Etc.

I was running Disney's Race for the Taste 10k, my first 10k, in October 2006. I remember it very clearly because one of my co-workers, who racewalks, walked with me during the first couple miles while I was warming up. Toward the end of the race, around mile 4, I started to blow past everyone. It was my perfect "second half" - I had very few fatigued spots - I just keep soaring right on by.

At everyr ace, there are a group of women who plan matching outfits and run together. They often wear their race shirts from previous all-women's races, and even though there's nothing wrong with all-women's races, I always considered them more a place to bond than actually race. And I couldn't help but smirk at the some of the other shirts I saw, especially those sporting this equation:

DLS>DNF>DNS

Those of you who have ever done any kind of race, (foot, auto, cycling or otherwise), know what these acronyms mean, but in case you were a non-racer, or someone who just didn't get it, here's what it means. Underneath this catchy little blurb were the following words: A Dead Last Finis (DLS)h is greater than a Did Not Finish (DNF), which is greater than a Did Not Start (DNS).

Great. Another dopey sports psychology mantra. I had a good chuckle, I'll tell you that, as I sailed past them. Mean as it sounds, I thought, if you need that slogan to pump you up, you're obviously not as tough as you think!

But now, after my recent DNF at the TriAmerica triathlon and a DNS at the OA Corporate 5k, I'm starting to wonder if I was the dope. The spirit suggested by that hokey equation is probably the spirit I should have had all along. I have finally learned that finishing is the more important part. A runner with the ORC told me one night, Pain is temporary, but a finish lasts forever.

Tell me about it. So does a did not finish.

Another DNS and More 2009 Goals.

Time for more updates, goal setting and miscellaneous bullshit.


This was a disappointing week in many ways and a great week in others. The dissapointments stem from a big mistake in my personal care. I had been maintaining a decent sleep balance, but this week was crazy at work and home. Instead of getting 9+ hours per night as I should, I got maybe 3-6 for more than 4 nights this week. On Friday night, I was tired but couldn't fall asleep. I sat and watched a movie and debated whether I should attempt the half. The race started before 6, I needed to be there by about 5, and I needed to leave no later than 4 since I live at least an hour from Disney. I set my alarms for 3:30am and went to sleep, determined to tough it out.

I set one wrong and slept through the other one, and missed the first race I've ever missed because of sleep. This found me curled in a ball at 4am crying my eyes out. I wonder edwhen my life would ever be more normal. I don't know anyone else who has to "stock up" on sleep for a week just to get up 3 or 4 hours early ONE DAY.

I didn't even want to go to the Tri Club meeting. I felt like a massive failure. But I made it, and grabbed onto some tiny little molecule of hope. I'm still doing my best to keep training, and I even renewed my Y membership so I can get back to swimming and group workout. I finally got a club shirt and hat, too.

In other news, I seem to have found a rather amazing guy. I have known him for a long time, and we've become pretty good friends. One day I realized he was interested in me, but I wasn't ready to act on it and wasn't sure I was interested back. I'm proceeding slowly and so is he, but I'm having a great time with him.

More later. I have new goals to add to my list.

Can I Get a Do-Over?

I'm sitting here tracking Wes at IM FL. WOOHOO!!! GO WES! He's already had a very sweet swim time.

The good thing about blogging? It keeps you honest.
The bad thing about blogging? It keeps you honest.

I'm struggling with some cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance: when we have two conflicting ideas that make us uncomfortable. Today's case? Getting dinner and running a 5k the next day. Dinner at 8:30pm, alarm set for 6am - not a big deal, this is only a 5k, not a Half Ironman. Until somehow dinner turns into hanging out and the next thing you know it's 3am. And that's really NOT the way I planned it. I honestly wanted to just go home after dinner.

Normally I would blow this off. I did throw this race on the schedule just to have something on there. But I've been doing so good - with life, work, training, resting, studying - and I figured I'd rock this race. I know this is really ridiculous and I'm probably being way too hard on myself, but I think there was a part of me that didn't want to do the race, that was afraid it would suck, that hates 5ks, and that was really afraid Al would beat me. I've never let that part of me win before, and today it won. There have been times that I've been talked into going out before a long run and I was able to moderate myself and still get up and perform. But I've never flaked out on a race. I've never let that part of me win before, either.

As luck would have it, Al would have made me look like a total ass. He ran his first 5k in 27:xx.

That's an 8:56min/mile.

His FIRST RACE EVER.

Yeah, there's no way I could have kept up with that.

/pity party

I'm gonna put on my big girl panties and deal with it. I'm off to get groceries, try to clean the house a little and tomorrow I'll do my LSD run. Because one bad day does not a bad week make, and one bad week does not a bad year make.

There'll Be Some Changes Made - Revisited

For there's a change in the weather,
There's a change in the sea
From now on, there'll be a change in me
My walk will be diff'rent, my talk and my name
Nothin' about me's gonna be the same
I'm gonna change my way of livin'- and, if that ain't enough-
I'm gonna change the way I strut my stuff
'Cause nobody wants you when you're old and gray
There'll be some changes made today
There'll be some changes made
- Benny Goodman, et.al., There'll Be Some Changes Made


I had crafted this marvelously expressive blog entry earlier today and lost it somehow, so you'll have to excuse the rough condition of these thoughts and believe that the original was far more eloquent and meaningful.

When I originally posted the entry below, I was in a really bad place. Physically, mentally, and emotionally, everything was much, much worse than I was willing to admit. I felt like I was living four separate lives: that of a professional, adult student, dealing with contracts and clients and deadlines and research and brokers and lawyers; that of a young, single woman, filling her calendar to the brim with dates and parties and social engagements, mostly with Sherpa; that of a newbie triathlete, desperate to jockey more training time, especially since training was the only thing in my life that made me feel healthy and vibrant; and that of a frustrated and misunderstood invalid, juggling medicines and doctor's appointments and tests and mysterious illnesses.


As if in answer to the whining I continuously did about all of the above, things got worse. Whatever relationship that was left with Wubsy exploded, my new job seemed likely to dissappear just as quickly as its predecessor, my health got worse and I gained 15 pounds between trying not to vomit every day and not being able to afford healthy food.


And then things got even worse.


Money got tighter, things got tough with Sherpa (aka exbo), and I got pregnant. I gained 10 more pounds and made even more trips to the hospital. When, I would think, does it ever end? Believe it or not, I began to pray for the days when all I worried about was how feeling ill made me miss my training. I wondered how on earth I ever felt guilty for missing a couple of workouts when it became impossible to afford a coach, a club, and then even a gym membership. And I lived with some serious denial. I would tel myself, Everything will work out fine. I'm not all that bad off. I'm really doing okay.. But some of the more perceptive people could tell the difference between my usual biting sarcasm and plain old negativity, no matter how much I pretended I "believed."

Now, in the midst of things being so much worse and - some would speculate - as bad as they could possibly get, I'm starting to feel as though they've never been better.

While I would never, ever, ever wish for those days to return, and while there is plenty of turmoil ahead (of that, I can be sure), I am suddenly unafraid. Almost everything I could have encountered has already happened, so any scenario I imagine seems not only manageable but downright yawn-inducing. And, perhaps more importantly, I am unquestionably certain that I could not have rediscovered my wit, confidence and self-efficacy had I not been through everything I've gone through and am going through. I no longer have room for self-flagellation or guilt; my schedule, focus and finances grew so incredibly unforgiving that there is no longer any margin for insecurity.

Another strange thing has happened: I don't seem to need my medicine any more. Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic or speaking too soon, but being forced to function without it for over two months seems to have seriously reduced, if not erased, my dependence.

The "me" I was becoming when I wrote this entry has finally made her way through the mess that was/is my life. And suddenly it's not a mess any more - it's just...my life. The person I see now in the (figurative and literal) mirror is stronger, smarter, more beautiful and amazing than I ever imagined she could be. There is absolutely no way I could feel that without having seen and done what I've seen and done.

I really did sack up. I really have learned how to live dangerously. It was never the way I planned, but it's turning out better than I ever dreamed. All because I decided to take another piece of my dad's advice and "let the chips fall where they may."

So, if I want to avoid ever again treading the path I've taken to get here, and if I want this me to stick around, for good, there'll definitely be some changes made.


__________________________________________________________________
The theme of the weekend is A Fresh Start. After all, why not spring ahead in spring, right?

I woke up this morning without an upset stomach for the first time in weeks. This only happened because I slept 14 hours last night. That sounds like a lot, but if you add up the sleep deficit I've accumulated since I filed for divorce on December 18, 2007, I would need to sleep that long on most days of the week for the next two months just to catch up. (This is, of course, assuming that one could make deposits into the Bank of Sleep. I know it's been proven that lost sleep is effectively lost forever.)

The past few months left me physically and emotionally depleted. My only escape was training. The problem was, I was living with nothing, in a bad part of town, spending all my time trying to get back and forth to the Y, bike trails, my old house and work after my ex-husband kicked me out, which left me no time or energy. (By the way, the Y and the bike trails are in cycling distance now!!) Needless to say, I was continually ill in every sense of the word, but I kept training as hard as I could and began to see amazing improvements, even if it made me sicker. (How much more amazing they can be is soon to be seen. )

But by now, you're surely asking yourself, "How early did she have to go to bed last night to get 14 hours of sleep on the morning of a race?!!!!" And, no, the answer is not,"Well, it was a 9am start." The answer is, "She didn't race." But don't think because I've had a rough few months and I missed a race that I'm down in the dumps. My directions for the race today said "no excuses, no regrets." And I have neither.

WHAT??!?!? The queen of woe is me has no regrets?!?!?!!?

You bet your booties, granny. This ain't a swan song.

Change is scary - I'm not saying it isn't. Especially when it happens all at once: new job, new house, new side of town, new (short) hair, new attitude, new (larger) clothing size (BLECH!). But I've decided that I'm not going to let it stop me. The me of 2 years ago would have - she would refuse to go out with short hair, wearing "fat clothes." She'd curl up in the fetal position because she was scared of all the commitments she'd made (house, training, singlehood). And she'd bitch herself out for missing her race on a weekend when she needed sleep - because, she'd reason, only wusses would be scared to move all day, drive 2 hours to a race, get up and race all morning, then drive home and move some more, hoping they weren't too sick to make it to work the next day. Especially when the only other thing they have going on is a new job, the purchase of their first home, moving, the flu, and a divorce.

But that was the old me.

A talk with my friend John this weekend made me realize that I obsess too much. And you know what? He's right. And Rob's right (both of them sadly). And Nate's right. And so is IM Able, and everyone else who has told me for the past few months to 1)simplify my life and 2)cut myself some slack. So, from now on, I'm going to follow the time-tested laws of KISS (keep it simple, stupid) and To Thine Own Self Be True. That doesn't mean I'm slacking, just that I'm preserving my authenticity. I don't have to answer to anyone but me. God knows know one else is going to be staring back at me when I look in the mirror. (At least not as long as I'm sober.) So I'm not going to worry if someone else doesn't like it.

That seems awfully impossible and scary. But, after all, this was supposed to be the year of living dangerously.

Besides . . . better to miss a practice race than FL HIM!

Practice RACE #2 REPORT: You mean triathlon isn't easy?

I felt super duper strong during Saturday's training run, which had me pumped for Sunday. So I was thinking my sub-two-hour goal was totally possible. And tapering was THE BEST IDEA ANYONE EVER HAD.

And then yesterday I successfully beat Lake Minneola and conquered the course that DNFd me earlier this year. That 750m (1/2 mile-ish) swim felt like slicing through butter. But, overall, I got my ass handed to me. My first Dead Last Finish in ANY race. Instead of nailing my sub-two-hour goal, it took me 2:10 and change. To be fair, this was not a TRUE DLF. There were FIVE MEN behind me. But I was the last woman. A DLF is greater than a DNF which is greater than a DNS, right? You just keep telling yourself that.

MEGGAN JOHNSON 28 ORLANDO FL PLACE: 45 of 46 women (but 46 DNF'd)

SWIM
17:46
RUN TO BIKE TRANSITION:
3:35
BIKE:
1:01:57
BIKE TO RUN TRANSITION:
2:18
RUN:
44:31
FINISH
2:10:05

The whole thing was a comedy of errors from the first minute. Before it even started, I realized I forgot my race number, and I had to have them make me one and I had to buy another race number belt. Then I realized my rear brake was dragging on my bike but I couldn't get to the bolt to fix it. So I rode 13 miles of hills with my rear brake dragging. Fun. Ok, HOW MANY TIME HAS MEGGAN ANN DONE THIS BEFORE AND IS STILL MESSING IT UP?

This is what practice races are for.

SWIM: As has been the case in all but one race, the swim was my favorite. For the first time, I actually passed several people in the water. (I am still extremely slow.) But I think I used a little too much energy because I got cocky on the swim and started passing more people on purpose instead of conserving energies as planned.

This is what practice races are for.

BIKE: I really do need my 100 calories per hour for racing - because of that and the hills I lost about 10 min on the bike. Again, I tried to "attack the hills" instead of conserving energies as planned. Not smart with rear brake draggage. One skill I seem to have mastered: removing myself from my cycling shoes while riding. T2 was at the bottom of a steep hill, and by the time I was at the bottom I was out of my shoes and dismounted. A little kid goes, "You don't have any shoes on!" And the lady behind me goes, "She was amazing! She was coming out of those things coming down the hill!"

This is what practice races are for.

RUN: I bombed the run.... and not because I didn't run it well or smart. Remember that race # I forgot, and they had to make one for me, and then I had to buy a new race number belt? I forgot it. I went back to get it, but gave up when I realized I'd spend more time doing that than the penalty they'd give me if they saw me without it. Then I had to stop - not one, not three, but TEN times to fix my elastic shoelaces. They always pinch the wide part of my feet and today was no different.

This is what practice races are for.

My resolve to go long is only strengthened.

Next month's race now feels more intimidating at double the distance. But, because of this race, my training will significantly change. I will ride and run hill repeats once a week every week. This week my openwater swims were already scheduled to increase to 2km, but I will need to increase my pool swims to over 2k. To improve, I need to join a masters swim team, which means I need to learn how to do flies and all those crazy strokes, and I need to go longer than 2k in the pool. My longest pool swim to date is 2200m. My plan is to start swimming at lunch when the masters' group swims and watch what they do. Then I'll approach the coach later.

I have also learned my personal food tolerances and needs, which are QUITE different from those for a foot race. For a longish foot race, a big fat bowl of oatmeal with a banana and a sprinkling of nuts is perfect. Not for triathlon. 1 banana and maaaaybe a sports drink is good for a super sprint, but a sprint needs a banana, sports drink, and half a food bar, with the other half stashed in the bento box in case I need it on the bike. To go Olympic, I'll need an entire banana, an entire sports drink, and an entire energy bar, with a whole energy bar and a sports drink (and possibly a gel) stashed on the bike. Holy shit . . . I'm human. The 100-calorie-per-hour-of-activity-rule applies to me, too!

Now I have to come from the TRUE back of the pack to reach my top 30% goal. This means I may not be ready for a HIM next year. It means I may need to spend the year PRing beforehand.