Category Archives: Parenting

I haven’t written about running skirts in years.  Or crotch sweat. All things have a season, I suppose.  Apparently running skirts are on their way out and short shorts are coming back with a vengeance. Who knew? Lucky for you crotch sweat never goes out of style.

Observations from the morning. Sixteen days until my 40th birthday….

These legs and these comically large feet just ran a 5K in less time than I have in a few years. Possibly ever.

I’ve been busting my ass lately and decided to see if my favorite running skirt would let me run without lighting my thighs on fire. Applying BodyGlide to the thighs this morning (because they still touch y’all, even down 30 pounds) and Lucy asks “is that for when your vagina sweats?”

Umm. Something like that.

Today has already been amazing.  My vagina sweat was totally under control.  My legs carried me 3.1 miles with the swiftness.  I am totally over my stomach virus.  And in less than an hour I get to have my first mammogram.

What’s your Thursday look like?  May your vagina sweat be light, your legs fast and your mammogram technician gentle.

Sometimes when I run the Signs are so obvious that I can’t NOT see them. Today’s signs made so much sense I have to share them.

I have gazillions of pictures on my phone that I snap while I am running.  I see something that is such an obvious metaphor for Life.  I grab a quick pic and keep trucking.  I write a blog post in my mind while my feet hit the ground and then by the time I get back home I am at peace with my Thoughts and writing it all down seems like it is no longer necessary.   To that end much of the time you are spared these brilliant epiphanies.

But not today! It’s your lucky day!

You may or may not know that I have been jamming in direct sales for over a year.  I am not a Sales Person.  Putting yourself out there is hard and scary and you’re not supposed to say “fuck” when you’re Being Professional so it is absolutely astounding to me that I have been at it this long and am experiencing even a moderate level of success.  The last few months I have really been trying to dig deep and figure out why I am doing this, how long I will continue, where I see this business going and what my Plan really is.  In every direction I just felt like I could see a few months into the future but I really couldn’t see myself further down that path.  Or I couldn’t see the path to get to where I did see myself.

So. I am thinking about all of this and slowly running uphill and I turn. I turned down a street I have run down a bazillion times but that I never, ever go down on my way up the hill.  I always detour when I am coming down (to break up the glorious downhill because I am a masochist.)

HILL BLOCKS VIEW.

Yep.  It does.  It absolutely does.  So, you gotta just Go. Go up over the hill and look.  You don’t have to go down it.  You don’t have to keep headed in that direction but you won’t ever, ever know what is on the other side of that hill if you don’t keep your feet in motion and get up over it.  There are hills in every direction that I look lately and I have been paralyzed with indecision because of them.  Not anymore.  The hills might be blocking the view but there is not a damn thing preventing me from sludging up them.

Onward and upward, friends.

Feeling pretty darn full of myself and content with the world I kept running.

STOP HERE WHEN FLASHING.

Even when I am at my most wise I max out at about twelve years old.  This sign made me laugh.  Why?  Why would you want to stop here when you’re flashing?  Why would you not want to flash elsewhere?  Or simply flash on the run (although technically then I suppose you would be streaking.)

What did I take away from this sign?  Life throws you a bone and gives you a little direction? Just do what you’re told.  Maybe it will be worth it.

So. That’s what a mile and a half of swimming and six miles of running will do to me.  Life.  All figured out.  Just like that with the help of some Signs.

Emily has a dance today after school.  You will have to believe me when I say she looks adorable. There are no pictures.

We were sitting at the kitchen counter finishing her hair and laughing.  “You look so cute, Em.  Messy bun was a good choice.”

And then there was the bus.  Honking.

“I can drive you to school,” I said.  I might have yelled.  In retrospect I feel like I was pleading already, as if I knew what would happen next.

“It’s okay! I can catch it, I love you!!!!” She had her backpack on her shoulder and she was out the door and down the driveway and all of a sudden I was standing on the porch with a cup of coffee I hadn’t even yet sipped and I was crying.

She’s not leaving for college. She’s going to school and then she is going to the gym to stand around and eat a heart-shaped cookie and do the Whip and Nae Nae with 87 girls and 12 boys.  She is wearing cowboy boots and a leopard print dress and black leggings and silver hoop earrings and a messy bun.  She is wearing the tiniest bit of eye shadow and a bit of lip gloss.

And I love her.  She is my Valentine.  She is the one that healed my heart so long ago. And I will stand far away from her and say “I love you, baby girl, have fun!” while the tears roll down my face so many more times.

Slow down, Time.  Slow down.

Picture shamelessly stolen from her private Instagram account.

Let me share with you a fantastic idea.  Get yourself comfortable.  Find your groove. Rarely meet new people.  Get to a place where you almost never have that awkward “first day of school” feeling.  The next step is important.  Eat everything, everything in sight for about a month. And then…. sign up for something.  Make sure it is something that makes you a little bit nervous.  And make sure you have to take off all of your clothes as soon as you arrive.  And put on a swim cap.  Perfect.

How comfortable do you feel now? That’s how I was feeling on Monday morning.  Masters Swimming.  Day 1. Masters (if you are not familiar) is code for old people, club sport, not to be confused with the US Masters Golf Tournament. Masters Swimming is a come as you are and let’s get in the pool, competitive swim team for people over 25. All lumped together, we are the retired runner with blown out knees that has never run a day in his or her life, the former collegiate swimmer,  the triathletes that hate the swim.  And the 39-year-old former swim teacher that thinks she is a decent swimmer but has cripplingly low self-esteem and is afraid of finding out that she doesn’t actually know a damn thing about swimming.  Wait.  That was me.

So.  I was feeling like I might pee my pants.  And I didn’t have on pants.

And a beautiful thing happened.  A friendly face!  She said “Hello!” and we chatted for a second and she said, “I read a blog post of yours. I think someone forwarded it to me and said “You gotta read this, it’s hilarious.”

She didn’t pet me on the head and say “You’re so pretttyyyy…” and to be quite honest I can not understand how she failed to see what a raving beauty I am.  But I will take it. Hilarious.

So I jumped in the pool.  And I asked questions when I didn’t understand.  And I admitted what I do not know.  And I learned something. I swam a long ass way and I felt great.

I am apparently still six years old underneath my swim cap and my forehead wrinkles.  When the coach noted that we had the same watch I took it as a sign.  He thinks I am a stellar student, obviously.  I resisted yelling out “YES!  It is a VivoActive!  Same same!!  Twins!!”

So, that’s what’s up over here.  Swim swim swim.

We were on the way out of Staples.  I had a huge oversized piece of posterboard in one hand and a bag in the other so there were no extra hands available.

“C’mon, Lu.  We have two more places to go and we need to make sure that we get home before Emily’s bus.”

As I do frequently, I noted that I was talking to myself.  The big double doors of the Staples had slid closed behind me and she was waiting in the vestibule.  A hurried man scooted past her, triggering the doors to open again.  A woman with an infant in a soft carrier walked past me and I smiled at her, knowing she would have to wake that little bitty when she placed them back into their car seat.  As each person walked through the doors, Lucy just smiled at me.  She was waiting to trigger the doors.  Herself.  Because that’s how she rolls these days.

I made eye contact with a woman who was probably old enough to be my mother as she started to exit the store.  She smiled and slowed her pace.  The doors closed.  Lu jumped forward and spread her arms wide as the doors opened, as if to say “I am the Queen of all that I survey!”

“You did it! That was Awesome! Now hold my pants, kiddo, we need to get out to the car.”

The older lady was walking towards me now and she smiled at me.  “You’re a good mom.”

That’s all she said. “You’re a good mom.”

Sometimes you just need to hear it.  You need someone to notice that you were being patient.  You were present and engaged and not looking at your phone or your to-do list or the softball schedule or the coffee that had spilled down the front of your shirt.  You were just there.  You were smiling and being a good mom.  And somebody noticed.

Thank you, Lady at Staples.  I needed that today more than you know.

Special thanks to Simon & Garfunkel

On the drive home from the gym every day I have endorphins pumping. I am sweaty and strong and I feel about as good as I am going to feel all day.  Something happens when Lucy and I walk into the house.  I cross the threshold of our side door and enter the kitchen and the sweat starts to dry and all of a sudden I need to make lunch and what have I prepped for dinner and I have phone calls to make and oh shit I forgot to go the post office and do we have softball practice tonight and….

I try to hold onto the feeling. I do.  Today Lucy was cool, we had macaroni and cheese which every parent knows is a crowd pleaser. “Mom, you go take a shower and I will just color, ok?”

Don’t mind if I do.  I walked into the bedroom to peel myself out of my sweaty gym clothes and I guess I didn’t hear her follow me. “Mom!” She was yelling, like something was very alarming. “What ARE those lines?”

Instinctively I pulled my shirt back down.  My still salty face started to flush and I was trying to formulate an answer, the right answer.  I took a deep breath and pulled my shirt back up and said “Lu remember how I told you that you used to be inside my belly? Well, in order to fit in there my skin had to stretch way out.”

She touched my stretch marks and was quiet. “That’s amazing.  Now your belly is so tiny.”

Well, compared to when I was 40 weeks pregnant, I suppose it is.  So tiny.

“That’s cool, Mom.  I am gonna have lines on my belly when my baby comes out, too.”

And she walked away.

I wish I could see myself like my girls see me.  Just once.

It’s so corny to say that I would marry him all over again.  But I would.  Largely because I don’t think I have stayed so late at a party since our wedding night.  Honeymoon babies have a way of making your wedding seem so special…. since yanno, you’re pregnant and nursing and tired and paying a babysitter anytime you leave the house after that.

When we decided to pile books all over the place as our wedding decorations I didn’t think about how one day I would be cursing his piles of books all over our marital home.

When the viking helmet became a crucial part of his wedding day attire I hadn’t planned on it turning into a keepsake and taking up permanent residence on the mantle in our living room.

When I sat on the back deck of our weird duplex and power drank a glass of wine in my Punky Power headband and the overalls I wore throughout my pregnancy with Emily I never really thought that I would come home from our honeymoon knocked up.

But we did.

And all of a sudden we had a new house and a baby and I quit my job and we navigated a brand new life with grace.  We were a family of four.

But for a week we were newlyweds.  It was just the two of us.

I got day drunk.

He got sleepy.

It was so, so good.

Four years.  We have only been married for four years.  So much has stayed the same.  And so much has changed.  The last four years have simultaneously gone by faster than any four years of my life and held some of the longest days.

A few weeks ago we were in the kitchen talking about marriage and I said that I finally was coming around to believing that maybe we could make it, maybe, just maybe we really would be those old folks with the rocking chairs one day. He looked at me and said “This marriage isn’t ending until one of us dies.”

He’s not a sentimental guy, at least not verbally.  I thought that was the end of his train of thought.  “I am not talking Murder One,” he added.

Cheers, MQD. Happy Anniversary.  I am super happy that you plan on staying married to me and not killing me.

You know those bad dreams that start with you getting off the school bus at some familiar-ish looking building and you realize it is a high school and you have an exam and you have no pencil and no pants?

The start of last weekend’s triathlon at Lake Belew was not too dissimilar.  Ordinarily my pre-race freakout takes place in the pre-dawn hours and it is quiet and kind of dark, not a lot of time to think about what you’re planning on doing.  However, due to the late start of this race (9:30 am!) it was plenty light out when I arrived. Typically I scan for the registration tent and the portapotties.  But they were blocked by trucks.  Huge trucks filled with bikes.  And college athletes.  Cue panic.

It seemed that everywhere I looked there was another gaggle of 20-something hard bodies, blissfully unaware of their 2% body fat.

I quickly scanned for Grown Ups.  There had to be Grown Ups here, right?  Oh, and there were.  Lots of them.  And each one looked more seasoned than the last.  These people were Athletes.  They trained and ate “fuel” instead of food and probably woke up at 5:00 am and kept their bicycles in their living rooms and OMG WHAT AM I DOING HERE?!

That’s pretty much how I was feeling pre-race, like I was in way over my head.  My partner-in-crime and the woman I blame/credit with my thinking that this is even possible reminded me that the further you go the more people tend to look like swimmers.  Swimmers – that strange breed of folks that have perfect, giant shoulders (making their bodies resemble a chiseled triangle no matter the shape) and that seem to miraculously not look tired at the break of dawn since they have been up before the sun for swim team their entire lives.

Got my  transition area set up quickly and did not have my Superman towel with me for the first time ever.  My spot was smack dab between one of the aforementioned college triathletes and a fellow old enough to be father that surely could have kicked my ass.  For the first time in the history of my triathlon career I did not take a pre-race selfie.  That is indication enough of how self-conscious I must have been feeling.  Popped down to the dock to feel the water and was pleasantly surprised.  Cold but not take your breath away cold.

Wetsuit on with little struggle and stood in line for a bit. This was a fantastic, staggered start open water swim so you run the risk of running into only a few swimmers and being kicked by just those in your immediate time spot instead of 300+. I was worried about hydrating enough on the bike (since I sort of feel like I am going to crash when I get my water bottle out of the cage still) so I pounded some water and decided that I would pee in my wetsuit! Yes! Another first!  First race in a wetsuit, first time clipped in to my bike, first time riding more than 25 miles outside, firsts all over the place.

How was the swim? It was good. I tried to put my head down and just swim and not sight to awful much.  My watch said I had put in 1.35 miles when I was finished with my .96 mile swim, however, so perhaps a little more sighting might be necessary next time.  You can see from the image here that it was a far cry from the triangular route I was gunning for.  I am particularly fond of the period where it appears I was actually going backwards. All in all, swim was a positive experience.  Loved the new wetsuit.  Didn’t feel like I was going to die at all.  And for those dying to know… my wetsuit remains pee free.

And on to the bike. Transition was uneventful, got my wetsuit off quickly and dried off my feet and hopped into my shoes.  I had been on the fence about throwing on a long sleeve for the bike since the morning had seemed rather chilly but it had warmed up nicely so I was good to go.  Straight out of transition was a hill on the bike (WTF) but I managed to be in the right gear and get up and out uneventfully.  I concentrated for the first 30 minutes on “cycling.”  I tried to drop into aero when I could, I tried to not fear the gear shift and just do what I knew to be the right thing.  All of the time in the saddle that I have put in has paid off and I felt strong…  and then I got bored.  Do you have any idea how weird it is inside your own mind?  Or inside mine? So, I started looking around. I waved at a guy that I thought was walking the most enormous dog ever that turned out to be a donkey.  I sang songs to myself.  I screamed in delight when I passed a gas station and what was I am 99% certain an old friend of mine getting gas.  I patted myself on the back for not turning around to go back and say “How the hell are you?” and that deserves quite a pat since this is a guy that never travels without a cooler of brews.  Periodically I reminded myself that although this was a gorgeous morning it was not a casual bike ride and I needed to turn up the heat.  Those moments typically came seconds after a guy in a helmet shaped like a rocket zipped past me.

The second loop on the bike didn’t bring fatigue but it did bring a fervent need to pee.  So, I tried.  All of the reading that I have done regarding training for the Half Ironman tells me that peeing on the bike is a skill one must learn.  I am hard pressed to imagine myself whizzing around the neighborhood (HA!) so I thought this was a good chance to try.  Nope.  Not even kinda sorta.

As I came into transition I was grateful for that hill, popped my feet out of the clips early and coasted down the hill and to the dismount line.  Did not fall.  Huzzah!

My goals for the run were simple. I wanted to try and maintain a consistent pace and look at my watch as little as possible.  I wasn’t a mile into the run before I realized that I could never maintain my pace.  My first mile was at my 5K pace and it was because I was very likely going to pee in my pants.  Came around a bend and there was a portapotty, a glorious portapotty!  Took a pitstop (my first mid-race pitstop!) and kept on trucking. Mile two was also at 5K pace and I was beginning to think that my legs belonged to someone else.  Hit the water stop at 2.5 and my legs were once again the old legs I remembered, I didn’t come to a screeching halt, but the sense of urgency seemed to have left the building.  I was delighted that I was almost finished!  The run was a two loop out and back and when I turned around after my first loop I told the lady that she would seem like Santa Claus when I saw her next.  Sure enough she shouted “Ho Ho Ho” when I saw her the second time and that little bit of encouragement helped me kick it into high gear (that and the fact that it really was a downhill from there on out.)

As per usual I encouraged the volunteer that came at me to remove my timing chip to back up so I didn’t throw up on his head and paced around a bit after the finish line.  No puking!

Did I feel like I could have gone twice as long?  Oh hell no. But I am certain that come May 31 I will be ready. I have a 10 miler this weekend for fun and a 60 mile bike race on May 1 to look forward to… and a whole lotta training. Jones Racing Company did a wonderful job.  Tasty pizza and plenty of volunteers and people to help.  And a medal!

Lessons Learned:

Sunscreen.  Use more of it.

Tents.  Don’t sleep in them after a race.

Water is your friend.  Before, during and after a race. However, once the sun goes down if you plan on sleeping in a tent – beer is your friend – your very best friend.

The final lesson:  I am going to keep moving. Keep moving this old body of mine and keep being grateful for the opportunity to do so.  I moved my ass a little over 35 miles and then I ate some good food and drank some cheap beer and I woke up feeling awesome.  Also, pigtails.  Always, pigtails.