Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Our Bodies Are Our Biographies


DIA #1 of USA Fit Tri Training.
In Spanish, “DIA” might mean day, but in Belben, it translates argh. It is the acronym I use as a motivational mantra on the mornings when unwrapping the blankets and going to the gym has all the appeal of gargling bong water. DIA=Do It Anyway. Do It even though it’s raining. Do It even though it’s Friday/Saturday/a holiday. Do It even though I’m sore, achy, tired, bored, angry, uninspired, cranky, and/or in the middle of the best chapter of the best novel I’ve ever read. Do It Anyway because I have to live in this body for the rest of my life, and I'd prefer that it not end up looking like one of those houses on Hoarders. Do It Anyway today, my first scheduled training ride with the USA Fit Triathlon Training group, even though it’s pouring rain and about thirty-nine degrees out. Because--if for no other reason-- my dad always told me, "If you sign up, show up."

Baby Sally.
I know, it scares me, too.
DIA has its genesis in my DNA, perhaps, or maybe it was a slightly obsessive-compulsive upbringing. When I was three or four, my mother established a chart in which I accumulated gold stars for completing tasks. Neither of us remembers exactly why, since according to her, I wasn’t slobby or particularly defiant about getting things done. “You decided that you wanted to give up Baby Sally,” she recalls, “So maybe it had something to do with that.” Baby Sally was a bedraggled, dollish amputee that I stroked the stuffing out of and dragged around until she was nothing but a plastic head attached to a limp gray rag. Apparently even a three-year-old recognizes when a relationship is one-sided and in decline, so the star chart was established and I gradually withdrew from our partnership.

Look, Mom! A star chart!
I don’t know if the star chart actually helped me lose my attachment to Baby Sally or not—I still own her germy remnants, after all—but the practice of keeping a record of my exercise and other goals is built into my infrastructure. Even during The Puffy Years, I recorded my infrequent visits to the gym, and now that serves as a reminder of just how much time I spent napping, snacking, drinking, and developing a soft cushiony spot at the top of my legs to decorate chairs with. I’m back on track now, however, keeping detailed, color-coded records of my work outs on a chart on the bedroom door so I can maintain a close watch on my strength-training, running, biking, and swimming.  

But the truth is, as satisfying as it is to look at my calendar full of colored dots, other factors inspire me to DIA even more. “People can really only motivate themselves,” my dad reminds me, which is true, although we can certainly be open to examples set by those folks who are motivating themselves. At 71, my dad runs several times a week, and that’s in addition to the 2 or 3 soccer games he refs—he’s one of my greatest inspirations, someone who has told me on numerous occasions that he’s “always the same age inside.” He likes running and soccer, so he runs and refs soccer, and he serves as a perfect model of what it means to just be: to resist living in cautious trepidation that because of age you must not exert yourself. I’m following his example when I tell people that what I’m really training for is not triathlons, but to be a good old person: our bodies are our biographies.  

Reading helps me stay motivated, although there is a gaposis in the literature when it comes to triathlon. Except for the usual collection of how-to and how-to-do-it-even-better books, there isn’t much else; maybe because with three sports to train for, triathletes don’t have much time left over to write. The Grace to Race, by Sister Madonna Buder, is the only biography I’ve read about a triathlete, and her story is inspiring. She’s a nun! And she’s 81! And she’s completed over 200 triathlons, including 13 Ironman races! I don’t need Chicken Soup for the Lazy Triathlete’s Soul on my DIA days—I just need to chant Sister Madonna Buder Sister Madonna Buder Sister Madonna Buder a few times and suddenly my sloth-like ass is propelled out the bed and toward the gym.


I don't have a secret formula for overcoming DIA days; all I have is what seems to work right now. I have a plan, and it's specific and it's combined with  a method--albeit an OCD one--for tracking my performance and my progress, and it includes rewards. Secondly, I have inspiration from people whose commitment to their physical selves gives me courage, strength, and a solid sense that age (as my dad says) "is only a number." Finally, and most importantly, I operate on the conviction that this is it: this is my one life, my one body, my one opportunity to take every piece of knowledge, physical strength, and determination that I have and use it to become the strongest person I can be. No Magical Buttock Fairy is going to arrive on my 45th birthday and grant me my Dream Ass. I have to work for it myself. And on days when I waver from that conviction, I think about my dad and Sister Madonna Buder, and Baby Sally. And I Do It Anyway.

Monday, March 21, 2011

When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It

“So are these full triathlons?” my roommate asks.

“ALL triathlons are ‘full’ triathlons,” I respond. Yikes, I think. I sound like a dick.

I back up a step and try to reverse my jerkishness. “Well, there’re three main distances—sprint, Olympic, and Ironman. I’m just doing sprints.”

The sprint-distance triathlon is the most accessible; if you can swim, ride a bike, run, and change clothes, you can complete one. Officially, sprint-distance tris consist of a 750 meter  swim, a 40 km bike ride, and a 5 km run; Olympic or “standard” races consist of a
1.5 km swim, 40 km ride, and a 10 km run. Ironman triathlons—the one which originated in Hawaii in 1978 and are featured on TV (occasionally with footage of a competitor shitting himself at the finish line)—consist of 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike and a marathon (26.2 mile) run. My neighbor and friend Tom Caldwell, who's completed two Ironmans (Ironmen?), says,  "After the first one, I thought, 'that was kind of cool.' But, on the second one, I passed runners who were throwing up, and there were people pooping and peeing on the side of the road...can something that's an impressive accomplishment also be a waste of time, I wondered?"

I completed my first triathlon in 2003—the Danskin women’s race in Seattle—and then followed up with another 6-7 races in the next two summers 
before taking a 5-year hiatus to pursue a full-time wine-tasting gig. Also, I got divorced, moved to California and back for a job, lost one of my closest friends (to error, not death), watched my best friend fight cancer (successfully, thank god), built a house and moved 9 times during the 10 months of its construction. Oh, and my dog died. And did I mention the wine-tasting? In the process of all of this chaos, I managed to gain 25 pounds and forget how to get to the gym. 


And then last summer, I hit bottom, and it wasn't rock. Photos of myself with puffy arms, a round face, and a noticeable, gelatinous growth around my waistline made me squinch up my eyes, kind of the way I had been when I scooted quickly past the mirror on my way into the shower every day. My horror had progressed: now I not only didn't want to see myself naked, I couldn't even look at myself fully clothed. I realized I had to quit fucking around. Somewhere inside that 161-pound woman there was a 130-pound triathlete—not a particularly fast or talented one, but one I’d spent a lifetime living inside. She’d been Supersized: buried beneath excuses and alcohol. Time to dig.

I chose to train for triathlons instead of other events, such as marathons or 10Ks, primarily because I’m not really passionate enough about running to drive around the country to do it. Running’s fine, but it’s the missionary position of recreational sports—same basic actions over and over again—whereas triathlon is the rec athlete’s orgy: more variety, more toys, neoprine, body lube, & full-body wetness. People write on you with magic marker, and there’s a change of clothing and the accompanying opportunity for glimpses of full-frontal nudity. Triathlons offer the opportunity to meet a variety of athletes and experience interesting venues and a chance to develop and challenge my body in a multitude of ways.


You don’t have to be Dara Torres or Amy Hastings or be a size 4 and sport 6-pack abs to compete in triathlons. There are athletes of various girths at the events I’ve been to, and many races have an Athena category for women 150 pounds+ who want to compete against like-sized athletes. I wasn’t as fixated on size when I started my training as much as I was on what my extra weight represented—a detour from my best self. The excess poundage symbolized five years of loss, pain, stress, anxiety, indulgence, and idiocy. In shedding that weight, I’ve escaped some of that baggage and am getting closer to being the me I’m meant to be.

"Regret nothing...not one of the wasted days," writes poet Dorianne Laux." You've traveled this far on the back of every mistake." Everything we've ever done adds up to one thing: who we are at this moment. For awhile, I was a puffy woman hiding inside over-sized hoodies and taking showers by braille so I could keep my eyes away from the damage I'd done. My back hurt from carrying all those mistakes, all those regrets and all that should I'd been hauling around from one wine bottle to the next. I've dropped the load and found that the aching in my back wasn't a permanent injury, after all. It was me, my muscles, those you can see and those inside my head, growing stronger.

Monday, March 14, 2011

Decide What To Be--And Go Be It

It's the ass-crack of dawn on Monday morning and I'm already two cups of coffee, one Facebook post, an iPod synch and a dog walk into the morning. At 5, I'll head to the gym for a slowish 30 minute run because that's what the crazy people do: they shake off the comfort of warm, unconscious bliss and trade it for stark fluorescent lighting and the company of other unwashed, bed-headed, coffee-breathing nutjobs. I don't know why they're at the gym, but I'm there because I have to be. Because if I weren't at the gym, I'd be at home, filleting the crow that I'll have to eat this summer; I set a goal a few months back, and then I talked about it. A lot. To numerous people. So now I'm hard at work trying to make certain that what began as a conversation doesn't become a meal.

Some Backstory
Me and Amy 1979 Kiddie Parade
In January of 2005, my lifelong best friend, Bellingham native Amy Baklund, was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer and immediately underwent treatment at the Cancer Care Alliance in Seattle. I was going through a divorce and about to move to California for a year-long job in the entertainment industry (that makes it sound like I was in porn, doesn’t it? I wasn’t.) During the year she underwent chemo and radiation, I didn’t see Amy much, although she did heroically venture to Hollywood for a visit and I went with her once to the “juice bar,” as she called Cancer Care. At any rate, Amy spent a lot of time during treatment with her dog, Copan, a Bernese Mountain Dog, who traveled with her from Idaho to Seattle for treatment, lived with her, and, when she felt strong enough, walked with her around Madison Park.

This is where the story gets sad.

Amy and Copan at Mt. Baker.
Photo: Chris Watkins.
Shortly after Amy completed her treatment (she's now 5 years cancer-free!), Copan himself was diagnosed with cancer. Dr. Ed Sullivan of Bellingham Veterinary Clinic worked valiantly to save Amy’s companion, locating Copan’s sister, Katy, in Atoka, Oklahoma, to donate stem-cells for his treatment. However, Katy was pregnant and couldn’t donate, and sadly, Copan died in January 2008 with Amy by his side.   However, Katy’s two pups, Frida and Kahlo, soon made their way from Chicken Fight Road in Atoka to live in Bellingham to live with me (Frida) and Amy (Kahlo).

This is where my goal comes in.
Frida loves a road trip!
This summer, Frida and I will embark on a journey of our own to raise funds and awareness for a research foundation Amy has created in Copan’s memory. Called Copan’s Place, the envisioned facility will be a state-of-the-art treatment center for dogs and cats with cancer. Located in the Pacific Northwest and headed by Dr. Sullivan, Copan’s Place will offer care and comfort to animals and their people as canine and feline cancers are treated with cutting-edge treatments.

Physical fitness and maintaining a healthy lifestyle are priorities to Amy, and to me, and for both of us, spreading the message of how health and fitness are essential for humans and their animal friends is paramount. My trip will begin this June as soon as school is out, when Frida and I will leave Bellingham to travel to San Diego, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, and Utah spreading the word about (and hopefully raising some funds for) Copan’s Place--for which I'm a board member,as its resource librarian--stopping along the way at local venues and to participate in one sprint-distance triathlon each week.

In the weeks preceding my departure, I'll be writing more about the adventure: why I decided to do this now, how I've been training for a summer sport in the middle of winter, and what I'm learning along the way. As I've learned from Amy, every day is a gift, a new beginning, an opportunity, and a challenge--to be the best we can be, make the most of who we are and what we have, and enjoy this life and all it has to offer. I hope you'll join me on this leg of my journey.