I'm highly annoyed with Fitness magazine right now.

Warning: lots of opinions follow.    There is a strong possibility that this entry will thoroughly piss you off. 


I was sitting there drinking coffee, getting ready to ride out to Daytona for a nice ocean swim and grading and house cleaning and a run and all the other fun that awaited me Sunday, and I picked up my October copy of Fitness magzine.  I flipped through several articles and noticed that this was Fitness's annual Breast Cancer Awareness month issue. 

Now, I'm all about cancer awareness.  I regularly contribute to the ACA.  (After all, what kind of heartless/clueless idiot would I be, a cancer survivor myself, if I didn't support cancer research and awareness in general?)  And I'm the first person to stand up and share my story in the hope that someone will take action and care for themselves or the women around them. 

But I am extremely over the enthusiastic plastering of everything pink during October, the breast cancer campaigns in every women's magazine, mentions on every TV show and every product in the country whose market is predominately female.  (Don't get me started on the effectivness and tactics of the Komen foundation - that's another story altogether.) 

Breast cancer has become a tireless, exasperating, pink marketing machine.

Yes, I know only women have breasts (although men can carry the gene for some hereditary types of breast cancers).  Yes, I know some forms of breast cancer are extremely invasive and aggressive.  But If you take a peek at the CDC's top causes of death in women, you will see that one of the top 3 causes of death for women of all races is cancer.  This doesn't say BREAST CANCER ONLY.  It says CANCER.  (As a side note, guess which type of cancer kills the most women?  It's not breast cancer, and apparently it hasn't been in 20+ years.)

In my immediate family alone, there are at least 3 women with cancer: I lost an aunt to lung cancer; another is a cervical cancer survivor; I am close to a NED diagnosis with thyroid cancer.  None of us, you will notice, is a breast cancer survivor.   Let's not forget skin cancer, too.   Where are THEIR monthly magazines?  Where are THEIR Races for the Cure?  Where are THEIR pretty ribbons, yogurt lids, and products emblazoned with signature colors? 

Oh, that's right.  They're either non-existent or hidden, because the rest of the public is too busy wearing pink and saving ta-tas.

My point isn't whose cancer is better, worse, deadlier, or more important.  My point isn't that we shouldn't care.  My point is that this isn't the only cancer we SHOULD make a big deal about. I'd like to see the money raised go to ALL cancer research, and that I wish the general population of the country, especially marketing and media, would acknowledge that ALL CANCER IS BAD, not just breast cancer.

Shouldn't this be OBVIOUS??   

-end rant-
-begin new rant-

So, already feeling peeved because I've been bombarded with pink crap for the past few weeks, I turned the page to see that Fitness also did an article this month on a first-time triathlete. 

First I got super-excited . . . . I love hearing about people getting into sport and making themselves healthy.  Then I realized that she is a twig-and-bone former high school track star who used to run 4- or 5-minute miles and had virtually NO obstacles to face while training.  I'm SORRY, but SHE does NOT COUNT as a first-time athlete and I am not terribly inspired.  Couldn't they have picked someone like my friend over in Tampa/St. Pete who went from her first tri to being an amazing athlete and spin instructor while raising kids and dealing with real life, budgets, etc?  Or how about my friend in Lakeland who got off the couch, quit smoking, and now runs Iron-distance races and helps coach a tri club?  Or how about my friend in Colorado who raises kids who also race, overcame incredible odds of her own, and is also intellectually accomplished and almost always trains HERSELF?

No, of course not; they had to select a size-zero, virtually-fat-free former track star, get her hooked up with a coach, and then I'm supposed to be inspired???  Don't get me wrong, GOOD FOR HER.  I'm always happy to see new people hooked on the sport.  But I continue to be MORE impressed by the women triathletes who surround me who have overcome more obstacles and learned more about themseleves and are certainly not 4-minute-mile track stars to begin with.  And if gender isn't an issue, what about someone like Ben Does Life?  He lost over 100 pounds by making his life healthier through marathon and triathlon.  He didn't grow up a 4- to 5-minute track star.

-end rant #2-


In training news, I logged a TEN-HOUR training week this week.

Whimmy wham wham wuzzle!

Marathon Week 15, HIM Week 1 Recap: You've Come a LONG Way, Baby

My stomach is killing me. (I'm actually up for this reason and because Kona had to potty.)

It was an interesting weekend. I was supposed to do my 2nd 20 miler, a kind of big deal since I never did the 1st one, but I ended up with some kind of stomach thing that's had me doubled over for 2 days. Bizarrely, oddly, strangely enough, though: this is the most comfortable I've felt about my level of fitness in years. It might have something to do with the fact that I'm at a weight I haven't seen in almost 2 years. Or it might just be experience. Either way, as I make the transition back to all three sports, I feel a keen advantage over any previous training year - something I've never felt in almost 4 years of training.

Even though I know I'm still undertrained for the marathon because I'm not running enough, I know that this year's 26.2 won't be as completely pulled out of my ass as Philly, because my overall fitness/endurance level is about 3 times what it was in November 2007.

I ended up training Tuesday, Friday and Monday. Tuesday, I managed to jump in with a Master's swim group and swim around 2k relatively easily without having been in a pool in almost 5 months. The lifeguard even told me I was pretty good. On Friday, I did yoga and a nutrition clinic and got told I looked great and didn't need as big a size as I thought. (P.S. - I also out-yoga'd a number of club members (if not all of them). Apparently, most triathletes are not even remotely flexible. As juvenile as it sounds, I was thrilled. I felt like Hey! We FINALLY found something at which Fatty can excel over the supremely fit yummy-looking people!)

Yesterday was rough. This morning is rough too. I was plagued (still am) by the stomach pains. Something we ate on Sunday morning had me laid up in bed all afternoon, and even with the attention and care of New Guy, I was still feeling pretty rough Monday. Though I'd planned my 20-miler on this day off (MLK, Jr. Day), I was having a hard time trying not to throw up or run to the nearest bed and clutch my knees to my chest. So I hit a spin class, knowing full well I may not make it through, but knowing that was a LOT less likely to give me GI issues than a long, long run and I could try to make it a brick.

Everything>something>nothing.

Not only did I make it through, I hit the ab class afterwards and finished off the mini-brick with a 1-mile run. And at one point I was really rocking out. It wasn't super-easy, but it felt REALLY good. I kept up with the rest of the class and even outrode some of them FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE. knew I was doing well when Hector grouched at me to add more gears. (Abs still sucked, but I'll never be good at abs.) In about 3 hours I'm going to TRY to run with the club.

And here's what's funny about this all.

One year ago, when I thought I wouldn't be able to swim with a Master's group? I was right. Now it's just humility. When Hector told me to add more gears? It was because I didn't know what I was doing. Now it's because I am capable of a LOT more and he knows I'm accidentally sandbagging. When I did a short run after a spin/ab class? I was huffing and walking a bit. Now I have the odd muscle twinge because I haven't been running and stretching enough, but I know how to manage the stiff-leggedness and cardiovascular demands and I don't walk until the run is over. When I thought about a group run? I felt like a total snail, an imposter even. Now I feel like, "there's going to be someone my pace, and if there isn't, they can suck it. I'll run alone."

Don't get me wrong - not all of this is from my own hard work. Some of it is because I'm not as sick as I was in 2007 or parts of 2008. But I'm finally seeing how much farther ahead I am. In 2006, I started training in summer. In 2007, I started training in March. In 2008, I started TRYING to train in January, but didn't really get going till February. And now, in 2009? I didn't "start" because I never took a "break." Yes, I had weekends or weeks where I didn't make 1/2 or 1/4 of my scheduled training, but I was still doing as much as I could every single week with no big strings of months or weeks off.

I've come a long way, baby.

Back to sleep with some Tums.