My Girl

anyone who has spent time with m and i know we have an intense relationship. words like peacful or cooperative seldom desrcibe our efforts. struggle and chaos are regulars at casa de taylor. we have our share drama, feelings get hurt unkinds words get said and some days i question my ability to be a good mother. i am overwhelmed by the demands and all that is required to raise this intelligent, passionate, strong willed child.
then a day like yesterday comes along and i'm reminded of the gift she is and what a joy it is to ride this rollercoaster together.

in the world of girl scouting, yesterdays golden gate bridge event was a huge deal. girls from all over the country travel to san francisco to walk across the golden gate bridge , a symbolic bridging ceremony to comemorate moving up from juniors to cadettes or "older girls" as they are called now. normally m is not a much of a hiker. it's often a hassle getting her to agree to go for walk . the trek to the bridge was no different.

the girls couldn't of asked for a nicer day, sunny but not too hot , a little on the windy side, but clear blue skies made for spectacular views. from chrissy fields the girls wound their way towards the bridge. m and i near the back. she was not a happy camper. i braced myself for inevitable complaints and assumed the role of cheerleader mom. with each step she grew more sullen, nor did she appreciate my "you can do it" coaxing. but she wouldn't let go of my hand. we'd stop along the way to gaze at the amazing view and take pictures, this seemed to take the edge off because m was actually smiling . she started to perk up and sheepishly grinned at me saying "it's not so bad mama". you have no idea what a breakthrough that was for her and for us.

we arrived on deck to begin the walk across the bridge with m on the inside. while she kept asking "are we over the ocean" yet she seemed a little fearful of looking down to see for herself. i'd say "not yet, almost there" until finally, we were over the water. m has a dark sense of humor for a ten year old and started edging towards the railing of the bridge peeked over and said, "no, mommy because if you jumped from here you'd missed the water completely" she loves shocking me like that, i just yanked on her hand and scooted her back on the inside, she howled for 5 minutes.

SWAP's (special watchmacallits affectionately pinned) are a girlscout tradition, during the crossing the girls would run into other troops and swap, the theme in the san francisco bay area is "save the bay" and the swap was a tiny little zip lock bag with a foam fish and blue hair gel added to look like water, it turned out very cute. so the girls walked and swapped there way across the bridge in about an hour. at one point m and i got seperated from the troop and actually ended up passing everyone and getting to the end first. not sure how that happened considering we were pulling up the rear for the most part. m liked not being last, hmmm remind you of anyone?

many of the other troops took the bus across and walked back, we didn't have enough wrist bands for everyone so opted to all walk together- both ways.....more groans from the girls, not just m! to tell ya the truth my legs were a bit tired from my 7 mile run the day before. our fearless leader worked it out though with one of the event coordinators and after a celebratory toast of sparkling apple cider (the leader forgot a bottle opener, so like any good "party mom" i scanned the parking lot, spotted a friendly looking biker dude and scored a bottle opener!) we were treated to a luxury tour bus ride back across to chrissy fields. we had the whole bus to ourselves and the girls spread out and were totally impressed that it came equipped with a toilet.

i like to think that as i continue to learn how to be what my daughter needs that we will have times where the hard work pays off, where the struggle turns into understanding and where the lessons we are intended to learn are as sweet and simple as "it's not so bad mama"

the other day m showed me a flyer from school , coach natalie is putting together a walk/run program. she put it on the computer desk and i sort've glanced at it, but didn't say anything. she stood there for a minute and then said "you want me to do it huh?" i casually said, without even looking at her, "sure i do, but it's totally up to you" she paused again and then said "i want to do it" so we'll see if she follows through. i will not reveal to her how badly i want her to give this a go, because this i know: she's contrary and she's my girl.

happy mama's day!

100th Post

new rule, no blogging until after i run.
i'm in a much better mood after this mornings
KILLER ASS WORKOUT!!!
after a solid 30 minute lap session that went better than lastnight i did a 60 minute yoga session. headed home grabbed a balance bar and some gatorade and went for a decent ride from home to grizzly peak. last week i went up centinnel, the ride down is alot funner nor did i dump over! total ride time 60 mins. got home stashed the bike and changed into my keyanos and hit the BART trail from home to el cerritto station and back approx 3 miles. 18 mins out 20 mins back. the legs aren't so jellowy and they could've kept going.

man, bay to breakers is one week away!

the bad news is i stepped up on the scale at the gym and it's not in agreeance with the one at home, a 5 lb. descrepancy! so i'm really 148 but still that's 11 pounds less than the last time i checked.

the good news. i got a new car. a 2005 honda element. it's so cute! will post picture asap.
(i know mia, i can't even freakin believe it!) T totally surprised me.

this is hard

the group is going to swim in lake anza(even colder than shadow cliff) this weekend, luckily for me i have other plans. getting out to shadow cliff with mia last week, was fun, but i didn't really work hard on swimming just got used to being in the green smelly lake. i also rode a flat 12 miles.
lastnights stroke mechanics class focused on TI drills, which i was familiar with, but i was in bad form and was the slowest. i'm having what seems to be performance anxiety issues in the water, kinda like i did when i first started entering running races, the minute i get in the water and have to "perform" i get all tense and can't wait for it to be over. this is so disappointing because i really thought i'd be further along than this by now. of course, i prefer to train alone especially when it comes to swimming ( me and a friend or instructor is fine) i have a real problem with being last all the time.
no, it's not even being last so much as being the poorest swimmer. and it's really annoying when people who can clearly swim well say that they can't. false modesty is not going to help me. i know i know i know i'm being a total grump!
right this very minute i hate swimming.
there i said it.

One brick at a time

yesterday was suppose to be the groups first solid brick, an 8 mile ride and a 3 mile run. the park was riddled with detour signs and instead of taking note of the route, i just followed the pack. we ended up shortening the route, not sure by how much, but it was compensated by more hills, so all in all it was a pretty solid ride.

the transition from bike to run is getting easier. my legs are a bit confused the first mile, neurons firing to move forward are met with resistance but gradually the message gets through and they get the idea. the shuffle turns into a steady pitter patter and then i'm actually running.

the group workouts are becoming more enjoyable to me.
there are a couple of women that always spur me on to push myself harder. their faster in all disciplines, i usually lose sight of them on the bike course and yesterday they had a fair lead on the run by the time i pulled into T1. the run is the my great equalizer though and i manage to shorten the gap, granted i'm a few yards behind and running just outside of my comfort zone while there looking relaxed and yaking the WHOLE WAY!

talking with a few of the group members afterwards, i was surprised to learn that i wasn't the only one who struggled on last weeks open water swim. people who can actually swim said there were really affected by the cold, some people did the backstroke the whole way. there is another women who couldn't make it lastweek and she's really worried cuz like me she's a weak swimmer and signed up for this event to force herself to take swimming lessons!!

i don't know if i mentioned this before, but last year my daughters swim instructor moved to oklahoma. she became a family friend and spent alot of time with M in and out of the pool. she was like a big sister. M calls her one day last week and she tells us she's coming back to CA. M mentioned my tri aspirations and she's totally stoked about giving me lessons.

the foundation has been laid and with one brick at a time this house is gonna be built.

In doing comes understanding

The title of this entry is about as profound as it gets from here on, but occasionally i have an "AHA moment."
This morning during my bike ride on busy Gilman (necessary to access the less busy hills of El Cerritto), it occured to me why cyclist wear all that wild looking gear.......not merely to look cool but to be SEEN. I have a fairly bright red top i like to wear on rides, but I'm having thoughts of trying out something along the lines of what i see out there on the roads ( so long as i don't resemble a sausage!). Twice this morning I nearly got ran over. One guy hedging his way aggressively onto Gilman and then a woman yaking on her cell, doesn't even look to her left and only see's me after i yell "HEY! HEY! HEY!

the doing i refer to in my title had more to do with shifting downhill, namely you gotta keep pedaling when your flying downhill to shift into harder gears to maintain momentum. no doubt this sounds dumb and obvious to you experts but for a rookie when the voice of expertise actually whispers helpful instruction like this while your out there training on your own, it's pretty cool.

another aha moment occured last week when after a victorious ascent up to Inspiration Point, the reward of flying back down the hill, in the middle of the road and NOT staying to the right of the road so cars could pass (narrow road and not too terribly busy), this sort've bike behavior used to infuriate me as a motorist. i realize now at that speed it's dangerous to get too close to the edge of the road.

yesterday while headed home down Fish Ranch Road, i came upon a cyclist in the middle of the road and a huge grin spread across my face. i was totally happy for him, cuz i new he busted his ass to get where his was. i knew the rush his was having and instead of being annoyed i was a little envious! how's that for some bike love!!

cycle on ya'all and be safe!!

Down 14 pounds?

i've been getting alot comments on my weight lately. at the easter get together family who hadn't seen me in awhile were really rocked. at work too, one co-worker commented that every time she sees me i look thinner. i have upped the ante in the training dept. so no doubt it's starting to pay off, i just hadn't stepped on a scale for awhile. i'm still a little dubious though, i pulled out the scale at home, set the dial to zeroe and placed on it a brand new unopened 5 lb. bag of flour and it read 5 lbs. exactly, so i stepped on it myself and to my surprise: 143 lbs!!
does this mean i moving out of the athena household? it's still a high number for my 5 foot barely 3 inch frame ( though i am pretty muscular) and i know i should get on a real sliding scale at the gym, but for now i'll bask in this for awhile.

Turning it around

today i was able squeeze in a swim at lunch.
the best way to get back in the saddle: remove all unfriendly conditions, replace with ideal (near perfect) ones and voila your back on track.
with temps in the mid 80's, a pristine olympic size pool and a lane all to myself, i swam for 30 minutes. my plan is to do this often and to buy a punch pass (1 month unlimited use for $60.00)
i stayed on the shallow end and alternated between freestyle and breast stroke. it's tiring and i can only do one lap w/o stopping and i take long breaks. this was my baby step to get back on track, it was only 8 laps but i loved every minute of it and that's worth everything to me right now. who knows, maybe by the end of the summer i'll be swimming in the big girl lane!

i want to be a stronger person, i want to deal with adversity better, i want to be less afraid, i want to rise above myself and see for the first time a real change.
when i look back on the initial impetus to start exercising, my first thought was weight loss "alright, it's a start".......then came the aquisition of new skills........"yeah okay were on to something", but now looking fear dead in the eye i see the real deal, i see the what i've come to learn (am still learning) taking the good with the bad seems too simplistic, riding out the dark low places and rising above stronger and clearer that's what i want.

i'll get there, albeit in the slow lane, i will get there!