When life... well happens

It's easy to give good advice - you know what's usually the right thing to do so when someone is at a crossroads in life. For instance, I would never tell someone to pass up eating at Mellow Mushroom (I mean, hello, have you had their Parmesan pretzels and their buffalo chicken pizza???).  Or to not eat a whole back of Cheetos in one sitting.  I mean really, I seem like I'm genuinely good at giving advice.  Now listening to my own advice... eh, that's tricky.

I told a dear friend this past summer (more than once), that it's okay, life happens and to just follow her heart and do what she loves.  She was struggling with some changes that were preventing her from training for what she had originally set out for later in the summer, just a hobby that makes up maybe 1% of her awesomeness.  Every time we talked, she would tell me how busy she was with work (which she was loving), how at the end of the day, she wanted to relax, unwind and be with the ones she loved, but that she was really struggling with what she thought she should be doing. Life was happening. She couldn't control that.  It was this never ending circle of feeling torn.  She needed to do what made her happy. 

 

Last November I signed up for yet another 140.6.  I got a coach. I'm part of Team Rev3 and had planned on doing 4 or 5 of their amazing races.  I had envisioned my season being filled with new Georgia races (full of hills and humidity).  I was excited to explore new roads, both by bike and foot.  In my mind, Tom and I were going to be smiling at all the "newness" that are city would bring to us in terms of triathlon.

And then life happened. If I would just listen to my heart for once, I would have known the right thing to do a long time ago.  But like I said, that's easier said than done.  I kept plugging forward, thinking that eventually it would all grown on me again.


This year has been less than easy on me.  I've written about starting over in a sense, being challenged with my new surroundings, about loss, about finding my path.  And I have finally hit a point where I need to listen to my own advice for once and do what I need to do (this time, not involving the advice on Mellow Mushroom (I eat there enough) and the Cheetos (they are always in my pantry)).

And while Tom and I are smiling probably more than ever, it's just not at the triathlon/training part.  I've cut nearly ever race out of my schedule this year - it just doesn't excite me.  I like swimming, and biking, and running here, but I just want to do what I want to do and not have something looming over me (ie a big race, expectations of pr's, disappointment of less than stellar events, etc.)  I love the new city, the opportunities, the friends I've made.  But life has thrown me some curveballs - some of which I've blogged about, some which I haven't, and I've been left to find my way through the madness, unsure of which path I should take.
 
Because so much has changed for me through August (it really WAS a sucky month), I've taken a step back.  For once, I AM listening to my own advice.  I need to follow my heart which really isn't in racing.  I need to regroup, settle down a little.  I need to do what I love and love what I do each and every day.  I need focus on what defines me, not what I think others see me as or assume I am.  I need to give life a chance to calm down, or maybe a chance for me to catch up to it.

Because, in the end, we're only given one life.  We need to make the most out of every day that we are given.  Why spend it doing something that isn't making us happy?

So that's where I am at.  Life is happening.  I'm doing what makes me happy.  I'm following my heart.

I'm over you August

This month has probably been one of the most trying months of my life.  I won't even bore you with all of the details, but let's just say that September can't come soon enough.

September is one of my favorite months of the year.  It starts with a holiday weekend.  Then college football starts.  The weather gets a little cooler (hopefully... I'm not so sure about September here in Atlanta yes!).  And finally, my hubby and my dog have birthdays.  

And I'm going to Ohio for 5 days.

That's a lot of awesome after a lot of suckage (totally a word... just trust me).

So with that, August, I know you still have two and a half days left to make my life hard, but September... I can't wait to see you!!!

I was tagged...

I was tagged by the one and only Heather-O!

The Liebster Award is given to upcoming bloggers who have less than 200 followers (or as it stands now, have less than or more than 200!).  

The meaning: Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing, and welcome.

Rules for receiving this award:

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves.
2. Then answer the questions the tagger sent for them, plus create 11 questions for the people they’ve tagged to answer.
3. Choose 11 people and link them in your post.
4. Notify the people you have tagged.
5. No tag backs. 

MY 11 things:

1. I'm craving the beach something fierce right now!

2. It's starting to get a little cooler and I can't wait to wear jeans. :)

3. I'm totally in love with pineapple Chobani yogurt right now.  I eat one every morning.

4. I am trying to cut out soda and I have a raging headache.  Damn you diet coke.

5. I finally cracked and read the Fifty Shade trilogy.  They were as bad as everyone told me they would be.

6. I have about 6 countdowns on my desk top right now and they all happen within the next three months!  Exciting times ahead.

7. I finally found tickets to a Zac Brown Band concert within driving distance.  We're all over that like white on rice!

8. Reece Pieces could possibly be the best candy ever invented.  I'm never NOT in the mood for them.

9. I still loathe the hills in Georgia... when will I learn to like them?

10. I'm going to miss going to the Delaware Fair this year.  It was such a great tradition for Tom and I.

11. I'm missing my REV3 family and can't wait to see them all soon.

Heather's questions for me:

1. Do you see yourself living at your current location for the rest of your life?  If not, where would you like to live? At this point, yep.  I used to joke when we were going through the whole moving process that once I found a house, I would die here simply because I never wanted to move again in my life.  At this point, I love the house, the neighborhood, the town, etc.  I can't see myself moving again.
2. What is your dream job? You mean, what do I want to be when I grow up?  Hum... I don't know.  I love working for myself so I'd probably want to keep doing that.  Maybe a travel agent, although I'd love to be one of those secret shoppers who gets paid to eat at restaurants and ask questions of the servers and then get paid to critique them.
3. What's your favorite thing about yourself (physical or psychological)? My ability to keep it real.  What you see with me is what you get.  I have never been one to be fake or to conform to what everyone else thinks is right.
4. What is your favorite food that if you could eat it everyday without gaining weight, you would?  Pasta and cheese, preferably out of the blue box with extra butter.  YUM!
5. What is your favorite sport to watch in the Olympics? This summer it was swimming.  Probably because it still boggles my mind that they swim at least twice as fast as me, if not more at every distance.
6. What is the sport you wish you could compete at in the Olympics (even if you have never played this sport in your life)? The floor routine of gymnastics.  How fun would it be to fly through the air? :)
7. What is your favorite workout? Depends on the day.  I love a nice flat ride with my friends, but I've been known to enjoy some trail running these last few months.
8. What is your favorite thing to do while riding the trainer indoors on a cold rainy day? Read People Magazine or what my taped DVR shows.  Anything to keep my mind off the fact that I'm on my trainer.
9. If you could go back in time and do one thing over or change one thing, what would it be? I would have kept my Organic Chem classes and gotten my minor in Chemistry.  I only had three classes and I probably could have made a lot of money being a drug pusher with a business AND chem degree.
10.  If there is a book and a movie that are the same, do you prefer to read the book or watch the movie, or both, and in what order? I'd watch the movie because it's faster and I tend to remember the characters better when I see them in person. :)
11. What is your favorite childhood memory? My parents always spoiled us with trips - we traveled all over as kids.  My favorite trip was the one out west when I was maybe 13.  We went to the Grand Canyon, on a Pink Jeep Tour in Sedona, on a rafting ride and then to Vegas.  

 My questions for you:

1. What is your favorite pizza topping?
2. Why do you blog?
3. Going on a vacation and you can bring three people - who would you bring?
4. What's the best thing that's happened to you this year?
5. Do you have a secret that you've never told anyone?
6. What is the most amazing trip you've ever been on?
7. What keeps you motivated?
8. What's the one food you couldn't live without?
9. Do you watch reality tv and if so, what show is the best?
10.  Can a girl have too many shoes?
11. Sunny and hot or sunny and snowing?

Tag!  Your IT! (even if you have more than 200 followers - psssst... this might help you come back to bloggy land too if you are like me and taking a little break!):
1. KC
2. Alec
3. Alisa
4. Emz
5. Molly
6.Shannon
7. Meaghan
8. Karen
9. Kelly
10. Christi
11. Swim, Bike Mom

 

Covington Century

Before I get to the recap of a great century ride this past weekend, I want to thank you all for the supportive messages that you left on my last post.  Just an update - Tom is doing great.  Just a few scabs left, but he's back in full speed.  We did find out that his Orbea had more damage than we thought so we laid Boom to rest on Thursday night.  :(  Tom's had fun building up his new tri-bike... a reincarnated TT1 bike from RAAM 2010.  It's pretty sweet.  Second, Buddy is doing great.  We have another blood draw Thursday with the vet.  He loves the new medicine (the fact that I hide it in tuna or chicken I'm sure has something to do with it), but he's been a champ.   And finally, my grandfather passed away last Thursday morning in his sleep.  If you knew my grandfather, he wouldn't have wanted anyone to see him suffering and would have wanted to be with my grandma, and that's exactly what happened.  It's never easy to lose a loved one, especially one as amazing as my grandpa, but we know that he's watching us from above, with his daughter, waiting to be reunited with all of us some day. This was a picture with him from a week a half ago.  So incredibly glad that I was able to tell him that I loved him in person just one last time.

So as you can imagine, the last few weeks have been crazy.  Training has been sketchy (although I'm seeing a pattern here since moving to Georgia as that's fairly common).  Tom and I had signed up for the Covington Century a while ago after being told it's one of the flattest organized centuries out there.  Um... yep, that had Kingery written all over it!  I was pretty apprehensive going into it though.  The longest I had ridden this season was 70 miles, once, and it wasn't pretty.  But I pulled on my big girl panties and got my mental state right.  Plus I knew that I'd be seeing George, Kacie, Karen and Summer so that totally made it more worthwhile.

We got up at 5 Saturday morning and did the typical Kingery-stall.... it goes kind of like this:

5:00 - Alarm buzzes.  Tom groans and turns it off.
5:01 - I roll out of bed, annoyed off that it's time to awake.  Tom doesn't move
5:05 - I tell Tom that we need to get going.  The dogs look at us like we're nuts.
5:06 - We use some choice words to describe how we are feeling about being triathletes.
5:07 - We contimplate quitting.  We long to be back in bed.
5:08 - We grunt and groan some more, then get dressed. 
5:09 - We agree that we won't do this again next year (note, this is the 6th year of Ironman training)
5:10 - We are on our way...

We made the drive to Covington in the dark and as the morning lightened, we notice that it's super cloudy.  Weather says 25-30% chance of rain.  Hopefully it'll just stay cloudy and cool for the day.  We got to the ride sight, registered, get the bikes ready, text my peps, and meet up with Kacie and George.  It's a mass start with a crazy number of yahoos (I swear I'm shocked that there aren't more casualties from organized rides) and for the first 20 miles, Tom tells me he feels like he's going to flip over his handle bars, ala last weekend.  His blood sugars drop.  It's going to be a long day.  We let Kacie go ahead and I work hard to remind him that this is fun, we're together, we chose to do this, etc.  Hum... it's not working.  And then it happens...

The skies open up and for about 35 miles, it pours.  Now I'm not talking sprinkles here and there.  I'm talking pelting rain that stings as it hits your skin. We also miss a turn (where the 66 mile route and the 100 mile route split).  We don't figure this out until 2.5 miles up the road.  Awesome! Tom goes through another very low point, deciding to quit triathlon and never bike again.  Part of me is annoyed, the other part is singing stupid songs like "singing in the rain" in my head.  I mean, really, what can you do?  Around mile 50, it lets up and we both just look at each other and laugh.  We're soaking wet, but the roads are flat, we have food in our bellies, and we're together.  To me, that's what it's all about some days.  We decide to just make the most of it and we do. 

We keep meeting up with Karen and Summer at the aid stations and they make me smile, as always.  On the roads, it's just the two of us, talking about our life and what lies ahead.  We are reminded of Ohio multiple times looking at the countryside, and then reminded that we are in Georgia when we see things like a dead armadillo on the road.  It's the best of everything.

We end the ride strong.  And happy.  I actually felt great and was pleasantly surprised.  I could have kept riding, although the car was a happy sight.  We saw a ton of people transitioning and although I probably should have joined them, I figured the extra five miles of riding that we did made up for the transition run.  Plus I had important things ahead of me that night that I needed to get home for... George's birthday celebration!!!  :) 

I feel like I'm one step closer to my end goal.  And that makes me happy.

Being tested

Someone out there is trying to figure out how strong I am.  Fitting, after my last post, I suppose.

Let me give you a glimpse of my last week or so.

Two weeks ago we brought our dog Buddy in for his annual exam.  Since moving down here, he's lost weight, we walk at least once, if not twice a day, etc.  He's like a puppy (albeit an almost 12 year old one).  We comment all the time about how he benefited most from moving here - he's got a new lease on life.  The new vet decided to do some blood work, simply because of his age and to get some baseline numbers. We got a call the next day that he's experiencing kidney failure.  As the words were trying to be processed, we were handed 5 new medicines, an order form for new food, scheduling dates for follow up blood draws and told that he only has a few months.  Our life kind of halted... we thought that he just gained a few years.  So we're being tested with that.

Then last Wednesday we found out that my grandfather has taken a turn in his health and hospice thought that it would be wise for the family to get in to see him.  He and my grandmother are living with dementia/Alzheimer's, but my grandfather is bleeding and will loose enough blood that at any time, he'll go to sleep and not wake up.  He's 92.  He's had an incredible life, loves my grandmother more than anything in the world, loves his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren more than any one person can love another in my opinion.  He's been such a rock for our family, an example of what true happiness is.  I needed to see him.  I flew out Thursday morning to Raleigh.

Or should I say Thursday afternoon.  You see, I got to the airport in ATL around 7:15 for my 8:40 flight.  Security was long, but the lines were moving.  I went through security and was "randomly" selected for another scan.  That always happens to me - it seems their random machines aren't so random.  The TSA guy swiped my right hand with some gauze thing and put it in a machine.  Alarms went off.  He looks at me and says "I didn't change my gloves so let me do it again with new gloves on". Okay.  They swiped my other hand and nothing happened. The TSA guy looked perplexed and asked his supervisor what he should do. They told me that I needed to be patted down in a back room.  I waited for two women (one to pat and one to witness) and we went to a private room, you know... because I look super dangerous in my running skirt and teeshirt.  They did a thorough pat down and the woman did another swipe thingy, this time of her glove after she patted me down.  The alarms went off again. The two women whispered and the "patter" left.  The other girl asked what kind of lotion I used and said that they had to call the bomb squad up to search my stuff.  Fan.Freaking.Tastic.  At this point, it's nearly 8:20.  And for some reason they couldn't figure out how to call the gate to tell them I'm here but just being held up.  So here I am, in the ATL airport which was busy as could be with the bomb squad searching my stuff (although, it should be noted that they never searched my purse... just my suitcase).  They didn't find anything (obviously) and sent me on my way with the advice of "you better run because you're probably going to miss your flight".  Awesome, thanks.  I ran to my gate and missed my flight by about 3 minutes.  That was 8:43 and the next flight left at 2:35.  Yippie... 5.5+ hours of free time in the airport.  No better way to spend my day!  I'm telling you... I'm being tested.

I finally did get to NC.  I had a great visit, albeit emotional, with my grandparents.  They were happy, and loving and that's the way I will remember them.  I was part of their sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, I got to take pictures and videos of them, I got to be with my family, etc.  It was good.  It was hard. 

After a long, emotional weekend, I arrived home yesterday at 7:45am.  Tom was waiting for me and I just crumbled.  I think exhaustion had gotten the best of me. By the time we got home, I had decided I wanted to hop on my bike (because really, I'm never too tired to ride).  We got out around 25 miles and both were kind of "eh" about the ride.  That happens a lot lately.  We decided to turn around and come home.  Around 35 miles into our trip, we turned a busy intersection and Tom hit what he's calling "road furniture" - a huge hard white half basketball size piece of plastic that the great people of Atlanta think is going to corral traffic.  I saw it coming and couldn't get the words out fast enough.  Up he went, flying through the air.  His bike smacked first, then his body, followed by a not-so graceful roll off the road.  He was bleeding, his fork was in three pieces and I was stunned.  We gathered the bits and pieces that went flying and an amazing stranger came to our rescue, loaded us and the bikes and drove us the 15 miles home. 

I'm a good student, but please, whoever is testing me, just give me an "A" and let me move on.

Believe in "me"

My motto for this year was and still is "I believe in me". 

Funny, right?  I mean, if you've met me you probably know my personality and that I'm a fairly confident person.  I don't mind dancing to the beat of my own drum (and yes, it's a funny dance, but you should hear the beat in my head!).  I'm not worried about what people thing of me.  I present myself as knowing who I am and what my purpose is in life.

Truth be told, the confidence I show isn't the confidence I feel inside.

I've always struggled with believing that I am what people tell me they see.  I've talked a little bit about how I can't take a compliment (I am working on saying "thank you", but that's a lot harder than I thought it would be).  I'm more timid and reluctant to just say "I am pretty good at x, y and z".  I usually don't take credit for a job well done.  Instead I try to minimize it, but saying how easy it was or what I did to cheat the hard part, even if I worked my butt of to finish the job. 

That's just me.  The true and honest me.

Where the "believe in me" REALLY comes into play is with training this year.  Man oh man am I struggling with this.  You'd think that this is the first season that I've ever trained or race and that I don't know what I'm doing or what lies ahead of me.  Every swim I get bogged down with how slow I am.  Every bike it seems like the pedal strokes are harder.  Each run, I struggle to put one foot in front of the other.  I've said "I can't" more than "I will". And it's hard.  I've quit the sport of triathlon probably 10 times this season, simply because I feel like I'm not good enough and I can't do it.  I've cried.  I've kicked things.  I've used the words "hate", "suck", "chore" and "miserable" more times than I can count to describe training.

But then I have a weekend like this past weekend.  I was with my favorite training partner and great friends... people who are absolutely amazing people, inside and out.  Friends who exude confidence and do what they love because they can, not because they have to.  They believe in themselves.

And it clicks.

I may not be the fastest, or the strongest, or the smartest, but I'm better than I give myself credit for.  And while other people believe in my abilities, be it to bike up a mountain, run on a trail, or whatever, the greatest gift I can give myself is believing in me.

Family time

I love living in the south, but I sure do miss my family.  Here are some pictures from the weekend... and the cake was for my mom's birthday. :)