More Than A Ride

Taking a Sabbatical

Taking a sabatical. Stay tuned.

2011 Bay Swim

The Great Chesapeake Bay Swim 2011 is this weekend. I am doing well with my swimming and excited to have a few open water swims to practice swimming in open water. Even though I live an hour from a lake with public beach, the group swim adds a different element.

I have signed up for the Chris Greene Lake Cable Swim. A cable swim is an open water swim that is roped off so you are more like swimming in a lane in a pool. Swimming in open water is different in that it is not possible to see the bottom to follow a lane line. You also have the component of waves in the water that naturally occur. Where in a pool the waves happen when people are in it. It adds a new element to training and preparation.

Good luck to everyone this weekend participating in the one mile or the 4.4 mile Chesapeake Bay Swim! If you are curious, here is a Google Earth image of the bay.

Change in plans

It seems that since last June I have not been able to check any races off my bucket list. There has been a lot going on since then, the most continuous obstacle has been the foot injury that I sustained in November. I can run if I so choose, but it seems that the long term damage would be great for a short term run.

With those odds, I am not going to run for a while, so my leg can mend. I am able to walk comfortably, so we are going to stick with that activity for a while. I can swim and ride a bike too.

One of the things that this process has made me feel is less than successful. I keep making goals and they pass by. It is tough to watch you friends go off and achieve really cool goals. While just maintaining, it kind of leaves you feeling like a failure.

Then I realized that, although I keep having these hiccups in my training and I have not been able to check races off, it has been good. I have learned that these struggles with races and events are all minor in the grand scheme of things. I have also realized that I am stronger than I thought. My mental resolve has been challenged over and over and I still stick with it. The plan may change, but I keep going. I do not allow it to stop me and retire to the sofa.

Keep your focus and don’t loose sight of the bigger picture. Enjoy the journey!

Master Swimming

There is a group you can join called Master Swimmers. Much like the USAT for Triathlons they have a series of organized swims and meets to earn points and compete against each other.

However, I shall be talking about a group that meets at many pools that has a coach. Designed to help you become a better swimmer.

I really enjoy swimming, it is peaceful and calming to me. I think it is that while in the water you cannot really have a conversation and it is at times meditative. Though since I have been working on
becoming more fit, I have noticed my swim is not as graceful and easy as it once was. Though that was last year when we joined our local YMCA (Kirk Family YMCA here in the Star City).

It was tough to notice that my body was not so fluid in the water as it once was. Over the past year I have learned that I might have been fighting against the water and not flowing with it.

Much like the person who is drowning in the water the more they fight the more the sink. Their body becomes rigid and slowly become more panicked until they are sliding beneath the surface. Sadly that is what many of us do in our lives and in our daily actions.

We fight against ourselves and against what can help us to be better. For the past year and a half I have watched this group of Master Swimmers. I have felt unworthy of trying to join them because I am overweight. Then I decided to do this bay swim and I realized my best course of action is to ask a coach to help in the my training.

This week I watched them swim thinking each day that I could do what they are doing. Then yesterday I took the leap. I looked at those drills off and on for four hours. Debating on my ability to successfully complete them. Then I realized success is relative and if I never try then I will not learn if I could.

I took the plunge. I looked long and hard from the edge of the pool at that board. I took in what it said, took a deep breathe and pushed off the wall. I did the first drill, then the second then the third I started noticing a bit of a smile on my face and a glow in my heart. I was over half way trough and in the same time frame as the master swimmer class time. Even the part I was not sure about I was able to complete.

Here they are:
Swim drills 5/27
300 warm up
1x 200 kick
3X50 freestyle on 1:00 (50-55-55)
500
200kick
3X50 finger tip drag drill
300 pull
37 laps +50/50 free/back
44 laps total and total time 1:00:26

I finished and did a few cool down laps, mainly they were my victory laps.

A Great Swim

Sorry for being absent for a while, we had the triathlon then the marathon and it was a whirlwind couple of weeks and then the catching up stuff at home. I am back and with a new focus, because little did I know that my race and goals were going to change so much; As a result this blog and podcast will be talking about some different kind of training. Let me start with a brief update.

I injured my foot in November 2009, not supposed to run until 2012, this leaves limitations to someone who enjoys triathlons. I was sitting the night before Tammy’s first marathon reading an article on Diana Nyad (www.diananyad.com), is in the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the International Swimming Hall of Fame. She is going to make her second attempt this July to swim from Cuba to Florida.

Here is the article I was reading: http://www.successmagazine.com/the-new-61/PARAMS/article/1385/channel/22

I pause and comment that it would be nice if there were organized open water swims. Thinking that would be more interesting than swimming miles in a pool for an event. Little did I know that, that thought went out into the universe and into my lap two days later fell an open water swim and since then I have found several others.

Now my training is shifting a bit as I began training yesterday to swim in The Great Chesapeake Bay Swim 2012 ( www.bayswim.com), a 4.4 mile swim across the Chesapeake Bay. Here are a couple of things I already know. It is a lottery my name has to be picked. There is also a one mile swim, but I want to do the big kahuna! I am going to wear a wetsuit and trying to decide if I am going to go long or sleeveless, I guess I will figure that out over the next year.

Here is why I am starting now. In October I can toss my hat into the ring for the lottery, but have to prove I can swim in the pool three miles under two hours and fourteen minutes. I feel as though I could do that now, but it would be close. However, this is in open water and I want to know without a doubt that I can complete that swim. I could also participate in an open water swim, but there are not many close enough to me to make the extra weekend of travel worth the expense. We will see, it may still happen.

This changes up my goals a little and has me doing a good bit of swimming in the mean time. I am still riding my bike and still plan to complete 2011 miles of riding this year. I am going to walk a couple of 5K races that Tammy is doing the half marathon in. Then in 2012 I plan on participating by walking my first half marathon, more on all of that later.

For now the blog and podcast is going to talk more on riding and swimming. I will also start looking at women and sports a bit more, because it is an important thing to talk about. Though we have come a long way we have not come far enough. I thank you for hanging in there as I shift through my foot injury and other life changes I have experience over the past year. This year is going to be exciting.

Did you mention race anxiety?

Hello! Welcome to another podcast and today we are going to look at race anxiety and a few ways to help work through those unexplained but very real times.

Music -Shayna Zaid and the Catch www.musicalley.com

A Walk For Sunshine by Jeff Alt – http://www.jeffalt.com/jeffalt.asp

Born to Run by Chris McDougal – www.borntorun.org

You can find other podcasts and information at www.morethanaride.posterous.com. There you can also link to me via Twitter. Please let me know what you think, what you want to hear about or if you do not want to hear anything else. You can also email me at rhonda@morethanaride.com.

Thanks for Listening!

Never Say Never and I am Wearing Vibram 5 Fingers

Thank you for listening! This episode discusses the Vibram 5 Fingers and the hot button topic of barefoot running and being barefoot. Well more of my personal experience and what I have learned in the process and some resources I have gone to in assisting me in this conversion.

www.morethanaride.posterous.com

Barefoot

The Living Barefoot Show – www.livingbarefoot.info/

The Barefoot University – www.barefootuniversity.com

Barefoot Runners Society – www.barefootrunners.org

Barefoot Running by Jason Robillard – www.jasonrobillard.com

Vibram Five Fingers – www.vibramfivefingers.com Twitter @vibram5fingers

Born to Run by Christopher McDougall (National Bestseller

                www.borntorun.org

 Injini socks – www.injinni.com

America’s Podiatrist – Dr. Michael Nirenberg – www.americaspodiatrist.com

Injini S

Opening music is by Shayna Zaid and the Catch Morning Sun – www.musicalley.com

Recorder provided by, Walter Miller CPA – waltermillercpa@aol.com

Logo Created by Wanda at Little Fish Graphics ilittlefish@cox.net

Women On A Mission

I first wrote this for a regional magazine and was published July 2010. Enjoy!

There is a quote by Eleanor Roosevelt that reads, “A woman is like a tea bag – you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water”. Though in my case the water was not so hot at a chilly 62 degrees, as I plunged into the breath taking waters of Smith Mountain Lake at the beginning of my first ever sprint distance triathlon. I found out how strong I am that morning. It was an amazing feeling to cross the finish line two hours and fourteen minutes later, finally achieving a goal set as a teenager. I found out that I am stronger mentally and physically than I ever thought possible, as I had to dig in deep to make it to the finish line.

I have logged many miles in a lap pool, touching the wall and swimming back over and over. However, that morning in the lake the only thing that kept me from sinking or getting out of the water was my mind. The water was so cold nothing I did allowed me to take a deep breath or to even catch my breath. I found myself gasping for air and using every stroke I have ever used in my life, including the doggie paddle. From the shore, my family and friends were watching with baffled amazement through binoculars at my unusual timing to perform my best Ester Williams impressions. As I did the scissor stroke, breast stroke and flailing about in the water, focusing on each buoy ahead as a goal. After entertaining my friends I finally got out of that water and moved onto the next leg of the triathlon announcing to the shore watchers that it was the hardest thing I have ever done. I wanted to take a nap then, but had to keep going.

A triathlon if you are unfamiliar is a race most frequently involving swimming, riding and running, performed consecutively. You can do it as a relay team or as I did it as an individual. Despite the struggles to get through the swimming part, I am looking forward to my second triathlon to happen this month, to push myself once again. I still look back at the amazing sense of accomplishment I still feel from crossing that finish line.

Goals push us out of our houses and to the gym or on the road to ride, run or achieve anything in our lives. What helps and makes a difference are the people we surround ourselves with, as we embark on achieving those goals. For many of us gals out there we have had remarkably strong women in our lives to follow in their footsteps and to be motivated by. I am one of them.

We should stop and thank all the women in our lives. Thanks Ladies! Without these monumental women, we as women of the world would not be able to experience most of what we do today. Women work all day and for some half the night too. Women left their homes to forge the way as suffragists so we can have the rights we today and during World War II, creating the feminine icon of strength of “Rosie the Riveter”. These women did not limit themselves to the roles so many people wanted to keep them in.

As the leading quote states, strength often comes out of us when we are put in a place that we have to react. For many of us, it may come in a friend pushing us out of our safety box or in an unfavorable health diagnosis. It is often hard to do things when we do not feel like we have support or have so much on our plates. Be a nudging friend in the lives of the women around you who may look in need of assistance to improve their health or achieve the feeling of crossing a finish line or maybe you are the woman ready to ask for assistance. Asking for help does not make you weak it makes you strong, because at that moment you stop trying to do it alone.

Start by setting a goal and gather your women warriors! Set up time in your schedule to do something to improve your health and fitness. Make fun T-shirts to wear as motivation. Establish ways that you can support the women in your life so that we can continue to be legions strong!

Remember as a woman you are never alone. Women have done so much that many see as impossible. There is a huge ancestry of women behind us always urging us to make the most of who we are, not to settle with the bare minimum. You are a woman, go release your roar!

Women in Sports

Maybe it is me and being born in the early 70s and the rise of NOW and the ERA and Title IV, but it almost seems like an insult to the women trailblazers if we are sitting on our sofas. I know that it is easy to think we have earned the right or ability to sit back and relax when we reach a “ripe” age, but why would we want to with the years of wisdom we have as we get older?

I remember my grandmother coming to my high school basketball games and telling me how when she played as a little girl it was on a half court and in a skirt. Well thank goodness we did not have to wear a skirt, I cannot imagine that would be very comfortable. She also said that they were not allowed to jump and they played on half court because it was dangerous to them to run the whole court. Thank goodness someone came to their senses.

Still in 2011 it is sad that the women in the professional field are still paid less than the men when they win. I guess since we are still making a fraction of what men make on average of the dollar in other professions that should not be a surprise. Thanks to brave women like Billie Jean King for going out on the tennis circuit and changing the image of women’s tennis. Then again in tennis when Martina Navratilova said she was more comfortable in shorts and went against tradition at Wimbledon and wore shorts. Brandy Chastain made it ok to toss off her shirt in celebration doning her sports bra and all of those US Soccer ladies making it ok to be feminine off the field and still play tough on the field.

There are so many sheros out there, that as a woman I hope I can make proud an accomplishment or two. If you want give a shout out to your shero that has helped you along your athletic path or who has inspired you to set your boots to walking.

You go girl!

Podcast Happy St Patrick’s Day

Intro Music by Shayna Zaid and the Catch found at www.musicalley.com

More on the Vibram Five Fingers in the next episode. For now, www.vibramfivefingers.com

US toughest Road Race….www.blueridgemarathon.com

I did speak incorrectly in Roanoke you can find Vibram Five Fingers at Walk About Sport, but mine were purchased in Charlottesville, VA at Blue Ridge Mountain Sports.

Podcast can be found at www.morethanaride.posterous.com

Talk to you again soon.