Aging up.

So I turned 30... yay? Now the marking on my calf will match my actual age. There are generally a few benefits to getting older. When you're little, you can't wait to get older, so you can do big kid things. Get a little taller, so you can ride scary rollercoasters, age into PG-13 movies, R, arrive at the age of voting, drinking... but after 21, really the only landmark left is being 25 so you can rent a car. Unless you're a politician, which I am not, after 25, getting older ceases to be exciting, and starts to get depressing. 

Is it also so in multisport? As an age grouper, I thought perhaps I'd have better odds getting older-- one might think that a younger member of the 30-34 group would fare better. Young is better, says our culture. Not so in triathlon. Like wines and cheeses, age groupers only get better as the years progress. Recall I podiumed at 29 in my 25-29 group. When I started this sport, I was totally clueless. Four years of cutting my teeth and saving money for a bike, I could finally live up to my potential. And now I'm aging into a group of INSANELY fast women who already own totally sick bikes, it seems. 

To illustrate: last year's first place 25-29 female age grouper was a giant TWENTY minutes slower than the first place finisher in 30-34. This year, FIRST place overall female was from my age group. Uhhhh... crap. So either I REALLY up my game or I lay low for four years and wait for people to get slow or have babies? Guess it's up my game time. Luckily... I already have. With bonafide coach D on my side, I've been hitting the training like nobody's business in prep for Vineman 70.3. Just registered for Ironman Cozumel, so that's officially on. And my most prized 30th birthday gift? RACE WHEELS!! Oh yes, my friends. It is most definitely on. So I should be able to keep pace with those speedy 30-somethings, for I, too, am now a speedy thirty something.  

Grane with gorgeous Zipp Firecrest 808s!!! Eee! 

I'm especially excited about these wheels, since they handle well in wind. (Crosswinds on an aero frame, so scary, even more scary with race wheels... UNTIL NOW!) The Firecrests are specifically designed to stabilize in crosswinds. From my rides so far, I can definitely feel the difference... yes, the wind still pushes you, but then you feel the bike kind of push back almost. It's really cool. Cozumel is supposed to be very windy, so I feel like I now have a secret weapon on my side that will let me attack that course like a bike ninja. I'm excited to test it out on the rollers in wine country. Bring it.

I'm feeling pretty good about my training right now... I've been sticking to my schedule, getting a decent amount of recovery sleep in and taking my supplements. Though the birthday was maybe less than ideal for diet and alcohol consumption,  I'm still in a good way power-wise and am pretty near to race weight, which is rad. I even modeled a bathing suit for Athlete Octane without feeling self conscious-- which happens... never? (Hoping to get to try that out in my epic quest for ideal supplements, but that's a story for another entry. Everyone who uses it appears to be a ripping beast of an athlete, so I certainly wouldn't mind the edge.)

 "Show us your o!" (O... my.)

Turning 30 ain't so bad when you feel good physically, and it was extra fun once I  rallied my friends. Jeff and Lisa, LA Tri Club buddies extraordinaire, offered their house up for party central, and all of my nearest and dearest in LA showed up (well-- those who could make it, at least.) It was so nice to see everyone under one roof, old Princeton friends, theater and comedy friends, and, of course, scores of triathlon buddies too. One of my birthday presents was a cake from Michael Wimer, who decorated it with all my previous races. He wrote "Cabo" extra crappy on purpose, since it was such a crap race. On the side it says, "Bring on Kona". Yeah! That's what this decade is for: awesomeness.

Wimer cake! (And spring break tee shirt from Cabo)

I'm about four weeks out from my next race-- well, the next A race... I randomly signed up for Breath of Life as a "C" race this weekend. That'll be my first Olympic in years! Will be fun to see. It's a little Team Awesome reunion, so we gotta represent at least moderately! 2 more weeks of peak, 2 weeks of taper, and wine country away. Kinda excited to see how I do on the fanciest of fancy bikes with a good training program and real rest. I'm already in better shape now than I was last decade. Let's do this thing! 

Five year tri-anniversary: Wildflower Long Course

Talk about a belated post. 

I've avoided this blog for well over a month, because I don't like to dwell on the negative. Also because shortly after Wildflower I had a two-week marathon binge of tutoring work for the end of the semester crush, and also was pretty horribly ill for a spell, so there wasn't really much time for a race report. 

Report I must and I shall: briefly... so again, as not to dwell on the negative.  

In many ways, I didn't want to blog about Wildflower because it's embarrassing. Embarrassing to, yet again, have to document how man drama interfered with my race performance... how my hydration was thrown off by bouts of sobbing, how  psychologically I went into a dark spiral during the run that made the race, already hard and hot as hell, even more horrendous. But yeah, once again, Nikki got dumped... this time at an even more astonishingly poorly-timed life moment, namely one day before race weekend. It was one of those "we don't have a future, so we should probably stop dating" conversations that could have easily taken place later, say, when I didn't have a 70.3 followed by multiple deadlines stressing me out, but poetically, I suppose that illustrated just how profoundly this guy a.) did not give a shit about me and b.) had no idea about anything going on in my life. So there you go. Yes, it was going nowhere, but good God, it could have continued to go nowhere for a week and that would have made my life immeasurably less difficult for that weekend. But whatever. Adversity!

It's embarrassing to be sad about someone who doesn't give a crap about you, but you know, it's hard to not, and you certainly have to feel bad for at least one day after dating someone for five months. Unfortunately that one day was race day, and I can't alter the laws of space and time, so as much as I tried to not think about it, of course it was all I could think about. And when you're trying to be all "Eye of the Tiger" and pumped for racing, "why does nobody love me" isn't exactly a resounding refrain of motivation. Having slept one hour and cried a lot, I was all dehydrated and nasally, and by race day I felt actually sick... it appears all the stuffed head marinated overnight and became a delicious sinus infection. DELIGHTFUL! Being proud and of the "it will be a cold day in hell before I abandon this my FIFTH YEAR doing Wildflower and triathlon anniversary because of some asshole dude" mentality, I still raced... of course. Swim was all right, about matched last year's time a little over 36 minutes, which is good because the water was shallow and almost everyone was slower by 2 minutes, so I guess that actually means I was faster. I was determined to crush the bike course, and did so pretty moderately, I believe-- by at least 10 to 15 minutes (can't find the actual numbers, but I think it was 3:18 as opposed to last year's 3:35). My HR was soaring with the efforts, though, and being sick wasn't helping. I stayed in Zone 4 (170s) the entire ride. By the time I got off the bike, all kinds of things were coming out of my sinuses, and I felt woozy. It was also in the 90's by then, as it tends to do (hot, heinous trail run) and I was NOT feeling my legs. Super bummer, because I should have totally nailed it. The toll of the exhaustion really showed at this point, and trying to struggle through the heat and against my brain was a losing battle: over and over again I kept returning to hurtful, negative thoughts ("why did he say that?" or "that didn't make sense" and so on and so forth, as woman-brain tends to do) which of course is disempowering and does not help reduce suffering whatsoever. It was, in fact, the hardest race I have ever done because of what a dark, dark place I was in during that run. It was the opposite of my zen happiness of recent IMs. I just couldn't get there... I tried and tried, but I was too stressed, too tired, too exhausted to mentally power away from the darkness. I had to take a cold medicine to try and get through the end, too, which probably made me slightly insane... with the bike and run combined, I averaged a 170 HR for a full six hours and change. Which is ABSOLUTELY INSANE.

 I did finish, though shamefully slower than last year on the run (2:10, really ought to have PRed that split given my Cabo marathon time) but still miraculously PRed by 2 minutes in the end. I eschewed the bacon and bourbon handout at mile 7 from the Square One peeps, but it did make me smile, so I got a tee shirt later. "No thanks, I'm sick!" I said to the guy with a jug of Bulleit bourbon. "The alcohol will kill the germs!" he replied. Maybe he was right-- my other friend took a nip and miraculously stopped cramping afterwards. Perhaps it would have sunnied my disposition? (Probably not.) Naked man was there on the trail again, by the way: I said "I hope you put on sunscreen" and he replied coyly "wanna help me put some on?" and then smacked my butt as I ran past. That was memorable.  

Of course the worst part of everything is, with my head in a fog from the sinus infection (I blew my nose after-- it was green-- oh Lord) and all emotionally wrecked, I was so focused on holding it together and not unravelling publicly that I, in turn, came across as aloof, unthoughtful, and ungrateful to my friends who had come to cheer me on. And that's nearly unforgivable. After being dissed, I dissed those who actually WERE there for me. And that's another reason I didn't blog, because I felt ashamed of hurting my friends' feelings. Happily, they have forgiven me. And I'm thinking the whole scenario was such a perfect shitstorm, it shouldn't happen again, but I am still extra mindful to always be thankful for the love and support of my friends, because they're the ones who've always been there for me when I needed them most. I'm looking forward to a time when I can return the favor.

After arriving home, we stopped into the Cinco de Mayo party... that was my bacon tee shirt... and I had a fever by this point. But at least I made an appearance...? 

I wound up with a fever the next day, and a bunch of papers on fascist and political rhetoric to write. I did make all my deadlines (A's!) and I did get medicine, and ten days after that, the worst race I've ever had to do mentally, I went out on a date with an amazing man who, yes, is now my boyfriend. (Say what?? Yes, I know. Crazy.)

Reflecting on the absurdity of that weekend seems all the more surreal, coming, as I now am, from a very calm and happy place of being in a real relationship with someone who DOES give a shit. And yes, he does know what I do with my life, and my training, and supports my dreams and would never unintentionally or not sabotage an important race. So it looks like that sort of emotional crap should be squared away for races of future dates. Hooray.

I wish I could say that my fifth anniversary of doing triathlons was a joyous celebration, instead of me being depressed and acting like a dick to my friends. But I can at least say that it was a one of a kind experience NEVER TO BE REPEATED. I've decided to look at it this way: May it go down as the worst race in Nikki history so that every other race may be a wondrous celebration of the friendship and community this sport has come to mean to me in my daily life. 

A note about Boston.

By now, the people of Boston are allowed to return to their lives as usual, since the suspects of the Boston marathon bombing have been located, one killed, the other taken into custody. The past week has been a blur of grief, confusion, and most recently suspense, as the town was locked down and two brothers sought ought in what sounded like a Hollywood-written thriller chase scene. Now we return to the reality of it, the absurdity of it, and try to find a way to move on in a world that makes no sense.

I'm very far away from Boston, physically, but anyone who runs or races felt the impact of Monday's attack in a very personal way. We marathon runners all dream of qualifying for Boston one day, whether we admit it or not. It's the Kona of running, yet slightly more democratic: there is an actual time, not a ranking, that you must achieve. It's a difficult and barely attainable time for many of us, and qualifying alone will be one of the crowning achievements of our amateur athletic careers, some thing we will look back at once we are old and unable to run and say, "I did Boston that year".

For the fast runners, the easy qualifiers, and the winners, it's not a question of if, but how fast they will finish Boston. These racers finished the marathon hours (if not at least hour) before the attacks. The people who were targeted, whose spectating families and friends lost their limbs and lives, were the everyday people, the people who set their mind to a goal, who just came in at qualifying times, who were running not for time, but to celebrate their ability to achieve something they set their minds to. They are a testament to the good in humanity, and those who stuck around to watch them reach their goals after the winners sped across the finish line were showing their pride and solidarity in this beautiful moment. Athletics is inspiring, and I've said countless times, the most exciting part of the Ironman is not seeing the winner, but watching the hobbling, suffering last few athletes JUST make their cutoff time. Because those are the people we relate to. Those are us. They are not naturally gifted, they finish because they dug deep into their core and found a strength they never knew they had, that we all as human beings have.

To attack the finishers at 4:10 into the Boston marathon was to attack that core quality of human goodness. It attacked the solidarity and community the race has celebrated for well over a hundred years. There is nothing political, religious, or ideological about a marathon. It is something that inspires and unites us. To attack it is like attacking a homeless shelter or children: it is senseless and terrible, and undoes a power of good in the world. Having seen the response to the attack in the past week, however, I do not think evil will prevail. By evil, I mean bad deeds beget bad deeds, that someone hurting us inspires bitterness, suspicion, retaliation. Marathons ran two miles AFTER the race to give blood. Unharmed spectators ran TOWARD the injured to help, not even flinching when the second explosion occurred. Bostonians along the course took stranded marathoners into their homes to warm up and wait for rescue. This attack on the core of what we are capable of has released the good in us, I like to think. It has made the community of Boston unite, and across the country, other runners and athletes have come together to express our solidarity with them.

Here in LA, A Runner's Circle hosted a flashlight run, and an enormous number of runners came out. This ranged from the super fast ultra runners and triathletes to 10K enthusiasts to folks walking with their children. We all felt the need to do something, to show that we still believed in the inspiring good the Boston Marathon represents to us all. Having sat alone at home listening to NPR and checking web sites and facebook for updates, I really felt the need to connect with my runner friends, and felt so grateful we did that. Those first hours of fear that the 20 or so people I knew who were racing and their families may have been in the blast was sickening, but it was only a slight relief to hear everyone from LA escaped: many people did not, and those easily could have been my loved ones, or even myself (Boston was, and remains, an eventual race goal of mine... and this does not change that.)

The flashlight run was a symbolic gesture: we couldn't give blood, and we didn't raise money. But we did show up, and stood together, and reflected on what this meant to us, to run as a group, to keep running, to hold onto our goals, and to keep believing in the good of humanity.

So now, onward.