Mile Markers of Life

So this is fun. I get A’s in all three college, 4 credit hour courses and I take a 1 credit hour pathetic excuse for a bootcamp class because I needed one extra hour and I get a B. That is messed up. Maybe I shouldn’t have skipped snooze hour so many times. Ah well. Whatever. I got an A in anatomy and that is enough to make me cry tears of happy joy and satisfaction.

I worked for 9 hours today and my feet and legs just kill. I drove to the gym, it was too late to get coffee, so I ate my warm banana and wondered if I could make it. I ran for about 10 minutes before calling it. In reality I should have run this morning before work. Everything that normally bounces a little when you run and pound was just so ouchy and my feet were crampy…just not the ideal day for an hour run. I get one rest day this week and I guess I’m taking it today. Dumb. I don’t like when I do this, but sometimes your body just says no thank you.

Tomorrow will be better.

Dat Vid.

No, but seriously. These videos…they’re so awesome. I had a crap swim yesterday, but I still have that fire lit. Where did it come from? I am not quite sure…my thoughts, my actions, my future hopes and dreams, maybe? It is lit, and it is burning so bright and hot, I never want it to go out.

Just keep on keeping on……….someday….someday in the semi-far off future…….I will do an Ironman. 

Can’t stop, won’t stop.

All the filmy, wet eyes.

I adore these videos, and now I’m off to swim.

I really can’t imagine living anywhere else. I am sitting on the patio at Starbucks. It smells like fresh cut grass and raindrops outside. The air is cool and moist. I am chilly, but not terrible with a sweatshirt and my hood up. I am enjoying a cup of coffee and putting my feet up before my workout and enjoying this beautiful panorama I get to look at everyday. Seriously left to right, mountains so blue. The peak is covered in fresh snow, the rain clouds are streaking across the northern range and there is a thick storm rolling in. It’s just amazingly beautiful. I am happy.

This song gets me going. I am utterly exhausted, and yet this song makes me want to go run.

I am just the prime example for attractiveness right now. The smell of dinner cooking made me near want to ralf, so I am out on the deck drinking my chocolate milk in bike shorts, neon calf sleeves, and a bath robe, because it is cold and breezy. You know how I roll. I just rode for an hour on the trainer. I rode hard and with nothing but my thoughts. My thoughts and heart are heavy, yet so happy at the same time. The best things in life do that to you I guess. Anything that truly touched the heart can have that effect, and though sometimes it feels like a burden to feel heavy emotion so deeply, I am grateful for the ability to truly feel and appreciate things, both happy, ecstatic, joy, and tremendous pain and sadness. It makes us unique. It makes us human. It proves we have a heart, and for that, I am grateful.

I spent a great deal of my day today picking my jaw up off of the floor.

Do you ever meet those people? Those certain people who you are just drawn to, be it their kindness, smarts, or maybe they’re just plain fun to be around and be with. You aren’t sure what draws you to them so much, you just are? It sounds a little weird, and it might be, but there are just certain people I cross paths with and I know for a fact I have to find a way to keep them in my life, to befriend them, just so I can be around them more often. I just get a feeling around them, they make me smile, they make me laugh, they make me happier and in a better mood. They make me want to be better, smarter, whatever. You just want to be around them.

And so it’s been this way with this person, I have just been drawn to a potential friendship and it is slowly chugging along, I like where it is headed, so that’s a good sign it is working. We get closer as time goes on and we talk about things, she gave me a ride to my car and saw my 26.2 sticker and told me she was training for triathlons about five years ago. COOL I say, but I didn’t know the half of it.

Fast forward to today, I’m about to get out of her car and I ask her what triathlons she was doing. “I was training for the ironman with my best friend, and she got killed.”

Stomach hits the floor, jaw drops open. What?

“My friend and I were supposed to train that morning. A long bike ride, but I had a hair appointment, so my friend went with someone else.”

Wait. What?

“My friend rode with a guy friend that day, and they were riding in a neighborhood in Texas when a drunk driver who was drugged up hit them. The guy flew up and hit the hood, dead instantly. My friend got caught on the mirror and was dragged underneath the car. Grace, she was torn into 4 pieces, they couldn’t put her back together.”

Speechless. Mouth open. Eyes filmy. Stomach queasy.

Really?

“Yeah. I was getting my hair done and I made them take the foil out of my hair so I could go to the scene. They were treating it like a massive crime scene. You could see where my friend was torn up. And you know what I did? I went up and picked up her bike computer, and I told myself, I’m going to carry this with me someday when I do an ironman.”

At this point there was just no emotion…blank. I couldn’t think of anything to say besides wow, and oh my god.

Just the simple fact that…she is such a strong person for one thing, and I feel so blessed to know her, and two, that people like this just fall into your lap when you least expect it.

I had a feeling…I had the feeling that I wanted her to stick around, to be my friend, but I never knew that someday, maybe, we could be training for a full ironman together in her friends memory.

Timing blows my mind. I feel so blessed right now…so grateful and blessed and fortunate to have gotten to know her, and happy she is still on this earth, rather than in it.

Timing. There is a reason for everything. Cherish every moment, because you never know. You just never know.

It is 73 degrees and breezy. Perfect. Cloudy. Maybe about to rain within the afternoon. Also, my gym bag. Triathlete problem fo sho that is a disaster.

I’m back and happy. One week and I’m totally free, but I swam today, because, and it felt good! Fairly effortless. I am glad! Now I am real hungry and real thirsty!

I am HAPPY.

The end is near. I can see it, smell it, taste, it, feel it. It is so close..so so close. It is May 10 and I nearly shat my pants because I just checked my countdown-o-meter. Here’s my life by the numbers.

• 7 days until school is over and I am free to train and work as much as I please without the pressure of failing a final that is worth 20% of my grade
• 36 days until the Boulder Sprint Triathlon, I am already shivering. That water though.
• 64 days until the Boulder Olympic Triathlon
• 70 days until EPIC Rocky Mountain Relay
• 85 days until the Boulder 70.3, the pinnacle of all my training of the whole entire first half of 2013.
• 100 days until Nursing School
• 162 days until Rock n Roll Denver Marathon

I have a lot of fun and challenging work ahead of me people. I am so excited right now! JUST HAVE TO MAKE IT through school and I am in the clear. This summer is gonna be so badass. I cannot wait.

I am counting down the days until school is over. I need a break so badly. My favorite class ended today, and I cried. There is really no point now in lolly gagging with school I want to be DONE and over with my remaining crap classes. I am a ball of emotions and stress. There is so much going on. I am an openly emotional person to begin with, but when you throw stress and anxiety and goodbyes into the mix I lose my shit even more than I normally would. I am the type of person that gets attached to people very easily, and usually it’s fine and I can befriend them and keep them in my life, which I think is the case, but it doesn’t matter. I seriously cannot help it that everytime I have to say goodbye I get emotional and cry. My brain says its not forever but my heart hurts and doesn’t care. I still cry and I always will. On top of it all, despite my day where I welled up and calmed down, welled up and calmed down over and over and over again, I did get my ride in—one hour spin class with hills and I thought I was gonna throw up the whole time. This whole endurance training, full time course load and finals month, a new job, holy holy I am just overwhelmed. Get me out of here. 2 weeks. 2 weeks.

The pressure is on! History won’t be repeating itself. I plan to leap over that line and proceed to collapse in a heap of happy tears, tired satisfaction, and complete, utter, salty exhaustion.

Tumblr ate my first post.

I ran 5 miles.

It was rockin.

I forgot to post until just now.

I am back in my chair, hitting the books.

Life of a college student training for a half ironman?

Sounds about right.

CHEYAAAH

Two years ago today, May 5, 2011, I ran my first marathon. This was the song that came on in the 25th mile. Injured foot, no more energy, tears running down my face. I put it on repeat and finished running strong…I finished. That is crazy to think about that it was two whole years ago, and now the same song comes on as I’m starting my run.

It’s perfect.

This week.

Do you ever just feel like a deflated ballon? I do. I took the longer way home from the library(my second home as of late) yesterday, just to see the pretty scenery and breathe a little. I doodled on myself because of future reasons. Someday, far off in the distance, this will happen, probably not on my bicep though, which has shrunk immensely and I’m not happy about it. As per suggestion of BeckyC I’m gonna start doing at LEAST push-ups and pull-ups and leg stuff to get the big muscle groups because they have been severely neglected.

I am not happy to say, but not much training happened this week. It was just a super super busy, hectic week. There are many excuses, and there is actually a lot to show for it, just not in the athletic field. I started my new job and worked a lot more hours than I anticipated, so a great deal of my study time got sucked up. I love my job though its PERFECT for me. I absolutely love it. The whole dead week thing is BS, it should be dead month, because I spend a massive amount studying, not just for a week. The week of finals is easy compared to the three weeks leading up where you are killing yourself trying to learn everything to a T because it is crunch time. I have my final lab practical tomorrow and I think I am officially ready to smack it! Thank God, I was fairly concerned with this crazy week.

I am disappointed that I didn’t get much training this week, but there was literally no time anywhere. I had to study! I can’t give up time where I need to be studying for a ride or run even though I may want to, and even if I did my mind wouldn’t be in it. It would have been on everything I had to do and it would have been crummy and blah anyways. Anywaaaay, there are goals in my mind and there always will be, but sometimes things have to be sacrificed whether it is a night out with friends to prepare for a long run or a day out on the road to prepare for a test. It’s all a big juggling act and I’m still trying to find my rhythm. All I know is that I’m REAAAAALLY happy school is almost over, that way I can focus on training and working, and then cut back on hours when school comes around again so I can train for my marathon! Remember that? Yeah me neither, but unless I get injured(knock on wood) or just feel severely underprepared that’s still ago for mid-October.

The point of this post? To show that I have no life even more so than before. It’s fine. It will be FINE. Just gotta get through finals and initiate beast mode soon after. I will do this. All of it. Every last mile will be mine.

Commence the most genius idea ever created! Robin posted a recipe about some paleo nachos using sweet potatoes as the chips, and you cook them in the microwave! I didn’t think it would work and I didn’t think they would get crispy but the totally did! This is the best idea ever. These are so yummy!